SpaceX launch - first time from Kennedy Space Centre pad

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SpaceX launches for first time from historic Kennedy Space Centre pad

By Christian Davenport
6:33 AM Monday Feb 20, 2017

(Launch video)
Elon Musk's SpaceX christened historic Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre with the first launch from the pad since the shuttle last flew more than five years ago.

About eight minutes after the 9:39 a.m. ET liftoff from what NASA calls the "great American gateway to space," the rocket's first stage returned to Earth and touched down safely on a massive landing pad the company has constructed here.

The launch, which carried no passengers, was to deliver 5,500 pounds of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station aboard a Dragon spacecraft. But its significance was broader.

Launch Complex 39A is the site from which many of the Apollo astronauts-including the Apollo 11 crew of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins-took off on their trips to the moon. It also hosted many shuttle missions, serving as the stage for dozens of fiery blastoffs along the Florida coast.

But after the shuttle was retired in 2011 and interest in America's space program waned, 39A sat dormant, as NASA contemplated an uncertain future.

NASA officials decided to lease out the launch site, and found a willing tenant in SpaceX, the hard-charging venture founded by Musk, whose goal is ultimately to put humans on Mars.

If not for the arrangement, the towering pad of concrete and steel "would have wasted away in the salt air," said NASA's Robert Cabana, the director of the Kennedy Space Centre.
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full story at:    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/space/news/article.cfm?c_id=325&objectid=11803922

Also check out the landing drone footage at:    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/space/news/video.cfm?c_id=325&gal_cid=325&gallery_id=171716

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