Cape hopes to be world's busiest spaceport in 2016

A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket, with the Air Force’s AFSPC-4 mission aboard.(Photo: United Launch Alliance)

Excerpt from news-press.com



With two dozen rockets projected to blast payloads into orbit, Cape

Canaveral this year hopes to claim the title of “world’s busiest

spaceport,” the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing said Tuesday.
“It’s a

great time to be here,” said Col. Thomas Falzarano, commander of the

Wing’s 45th Operations Group. “Business is booming.”

Falzarano

presented the Eastern Range launch forecast to several hundred guests at

the National Space Club Florida Committee’s meeting in Cape Canaveral.

Weather,

technical issues and program changes frequently delay launches, so it’s

likely some of the missions will slip into next year. But the forecast

shows the Space Coast launching at an increasingly busy clip even

without human spaceflight missions, which aren’t expected to resume for

several years.

The 2015 forecast anticipates United Launch

Alliance matching last year’s total of 10 Cape launches, including eight

by Atlas V rockets and two by Delta IV rockets.

And it assumes as many as 14 launches by SpaceX. Last year had six Falcon 9 flights.

That was SpaceX’s most launches in a calendar year, but five fewer than was projected last January.

This year the company hopes to activate a second launch pad, complementing its existing one at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The

debut of the Falcon Heavy rocket from a former Apollo and shuttle pad

at Kennedy Space Center would be one of this year’s most highly

anticipated launches.

In addition, SpaceX plans to launch more ISS resupply missions, and commercial and government satellites.

ULA’s

first launch of the year is coming up Tuesday, with an Atlas V

targeting a 7:43 p.m. liftoff with a Navy communications satellite.

The

Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture has its usual slate of high-value

science and national security missions. The manifest includes a roughly

$1 billion NASA science mission, an X-37B military space plane and more

Global Positioning System satellites.

Overall last year, the 45th

Space Wing supported 16 space launches — five less than projected last

January (all attributed to SpaceX) — plus two Trident missile tests

launched from submarines.
That ranked the Cape No. 2 behind the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan, Falzarano said.

But

with 24 missions potentially on the books this year and more than 30 in

various planning stages for 2016, Falzarano said the Eastern Range is

facing its busiest two-year stretch in more than two decades.

“The Cape, right here, is going to be the busiest spaceport in the world,” he said.

Growing launch rate
•2013: 14
•2014: 18
•2015: 24 (projected)
Source: U.S. Air Force 45th Space Wing

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Cape hopes to be world's busiest spaceport in 2016