8/16/2023 0 Comments Cape canaveral launchAt some point, we are going to run out of people and time to support commercial launch on the Eastern and Western Ranges,” he said. “We can prove definitively that if we don’t set these plans in motion on the Eastern and Western Ranges, we will run out of payload processing capability for DoD missions alone.”Ī third issue is personnel. He said the service needed to add more payload processing capacity at both Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg and was looking at options like establishing commercial payload processing facilities on Cape property. Range and pad infrastructure is just one constraint on launch activity. “That possibility starts to be intriguing, so I would encourage a national-level conversation to start the groundwork of what that would look like.” That combination of reduced exclusion zones and improved vehicle track records, along with what Purdy described as a willingness to launch “with a couple boats in the water and perhaps a aircraft or two in the broad area,” could enable launches from Vandenberg on eastern trajectories. “As we continue to hone safety analyses for the ranges, and as some particular launch providers have got a large number of successful launches, we’ve been able to narrow the boxes more and more,” he said, referring to exclusion zones for launches. He didn’t elaborate on the analysis in his presentation, but said it “opened the door” for long-term discussions about eventually conducting launches to lower-inclination orbits from Vandenberg. Such launches had traditionally been ruled out because of trajectories that would take vehicles over land. “So we did the reverse: can you launch East Coast missions off the West Coast, from Vandenberg? Fascinatingly, you can,” he said. “It turns out you can,” he said, with SpaceX launching several Falcon 9 missions to polar orbits in recent years from Florida. Purdy noted the Space Force studied the ability to conduct launches to polar orbits, traditionally flown from the Western Range at Vandenberg Space Force Base, from Florida. That could open the door to more creative solutions. He added he was working with Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island to support additional launches there, “but even they’ll be tapped out eventually.” Additional launch sites at the neighboring Kennedy Space Center could be built, but that would require working with NASA. When that is complete, there will be limited options, he suggested. “When that’s done, we’re going to be very, very close to out of pads on the Eastern Range.” That has included allocating three unused launch pads in March to four companies developing small launch vehicles, with a second round planned for larger vehicles. “The Eastern Range is almost done doing everything it can do,” he said. Stephen Purdy, whose roles include director of the Eastern Range and director of launch and range operations for the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, noted the launch facilities at Cape Canaveral are nearing capacity. In a presentation to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) May 15, Maj. WASHINGTON - With increasing activity pushing Florida’s launch sites to their limits, the Space Force is studying ways to move some of that activity elsewhere, including to California.
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