NASA Spaceflight.com by Chris Gebhardt April 12, 2017
As SpaceX continues to make excellent progress on rebuilding SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the company has achieved a major milestone toward the debut of its Falcon Heavy rocket. With the first Falcon Heavy side core on the test stand at McGregor, Texas, SpaceX is in final preparation for the all important hot fire test of the booster before its shipment to the Kennedy Space Center ahead of a planned maiden flight later this year.
SLC-40 progress – long-pole to Falcon Heavy debut:
Following completion, activation, and christening of LC-39A in February, SpaceX’s dedicated team of pad engineers switched focus a few miles down the beach to SLC-40.
Working the same magic they conducted on 39A, which performed flawlessly during its inaugural use for Falcon 9 back in February, those same engineers have since been hard at work rebuilding the company’s SLC-40 pad on the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Heavily damaged – but not destroyed – by the mishap during the Falcon 9 static fire for the AMOS-6 mission on 1 September 2016, the pad is now one of the primary driving factors toward the company’s upcoming debut of its Falcon Heavy rocket.
More:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/04/falcon-heavy-build-up-slc-40-pad-rebuild-progressing/
