Pad 40 has been the primary Falcon 9 launch site for most of the rocket’s history, while Pad 39A provided a location for crew launches and an enhancement to support SpaceX’s increasing launch cadence. But there are signs that the Falcon 9 launch cadence, which reached 165 missions last year, may have peaked as the company shifts its focus to Starship. And SpaceX has steadily reduced the time it takes to reconfigure Pad 40 between launches, bringing turnaround time to less than 48 hours.
If needed, SpaceX officials said they could reinstall the crew arm for a Dragon mission to launch from Pad 39A.
needs repair
Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of manufacturing and flight reliability, said there’s another important reason for removing the crew arm on Pad 39A. The bearings connecting the arm to the launch pad’s tower needed repair.
“To physically access them, the arm needs to be removed,” Gerstenmayer said. “Those bearings have to come out and be reinstalled. We’ll do that work at Kennedy Space Center. And the intent is that we don’t have to put the hand back up… When we get a call-up to a mission and we have to fly a mission, if that’s needed, we have plenty of time to put the hand back up.”
SpaceX continues to launch Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets from Pad 39A amid nearby construction work in preparation for Starship flights. “This has no impact on our ability to launch from the pad,” Gerstenmaier said.
That may change as SpaceX begins testing and launching Starship from Kennedy Space Center. Starship launch operations may routinely force personnel to close Pad 39A.
“The right thing to do is to replace those bearings in the ground environment, make some upgrades to them, and then when it’s time to fly we’ll be ready to go and hands up if we need to fly,” Gerstenmaier said.
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