Click an image to view it at a higher resolution. All images in this article are copyright © 2015 Stephen C. Smith. Use elsewhere is permitted if credit is given to SpaceKSC.com.
Since January, I've been making monthly trips around Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A to photograph the SpaceX upgrades.
This month's photos were shot on Memorial Day, Monday May 25 — which also happened to be the 54th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's congressional speech proposing a human lunar spaceflight.
Below are the latest images, but here are the links to the images from earlier this year:
Going Up, Part 2 (February 24)
Thank you for taking and posting the pictures. I like to keep up with everything SpaceX. The launch pad looks like it's still configured for shuttle. Is that right?
ReplyDeleteNot really. The Shuttle service tower was left in place because SpaceX will use parts of it, e.g. the elevator in the Fixed Service Structure. Other parts have been removed. If you look closely at the bottom photo, you can see it appears that SpaceX has sealed the top of the flame trench, which would make it incompatible with the Shuttle's Mobile Launch Platform.
DeleteI suspect that, in time, SpaceX might remove the Rotating Service Structure to the left, but we'll see. Some speculate SpaceX might use the RSS for placing military payloads atop a Falcon Heavy.