Cape Canaveral

Cape Canaveral, from the Spanish Cabo Cañaveral, is a cape in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic coast. Known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River. It was discovered by the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León in 1513.

It is part of a region known as the Space Coast, and is the site of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Since many U.S. spacecraft are launched from both the station and the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, the terms "Cape Canaveral," "Canaveral", or "the Cape" have become metonyms that refer to both as the launch site of spacecraft. In homage to its spacefaring heritage, the Florida Public Service Commission allocated area code 321 to the Cape Canaveral area.

Other features of the cape include the Cape Canaveral lighthouse and Port Canaveral, one of the busiest cruise ports in the world. The city of Cape Canaveral lies just south of the Port Canaveral District.Mosquito Lagoon, the Indian River, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore are also features of this area.

Landing zone

In military terminology a landing zone (LZ) is an area where aircraft can land.

In the United States military, a landing zone is the actual point where aircraft, especially helicopters, land (equivalent to the commonwealth landing point.)

In commonwealth militaries, a landing zone is the cartographic (numeric) zone in which the landing is going to take place (e.g., a valley). The landing area is the area in which the landing is going to take place (e.g., the field where the aircraft are to land). The landing point is the point on which aircraft are going to land (e.g., a point of the field). Each aircraft has a different landing point.

Identifying an LZ from the air

Landing areas are most commonly marked by coloured smoke. The standard procedure is for troops already on the ground at the landing area to "pop smoke" (set off a smoke grenade). The aircraft pilot(s) radio back when the smoke is spotted and what colour smoke they see. Troops on the ground then respond with what colour the smoke should be. Smoke of a different colour can mean that the landing area has been discovered and compromised by the enemy, and the pilot will usually have the authority to cancel any landing.

Landing Zone 1

Landing Zone 1 is a landing facility for recovering components of SpaceX's VTVL reusable launch vehicles. The facility was built on land leased in February 2015 from the United States Air Force, on the site of the former Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 13.

The site consists of a main pad 282 feet (86 m) in diameter marked with the stylized X from the SpaceX company logo. An additional four 150 feet (46 m) diameter pads are planned to support the simultaneous recovery of additional boosters of the Falcon Heavy. Infrastructure to support operations including improved roadways for crane movement and a rocket pedestal area and large concrete foundation, away from the five landing pads, for attaching the booster stage when taking the rocket from vertical to horizontal orientation is also planned.

Operations at the facility followed seven earlier landing tests by SpaceX, five of which involved intentional descents into the open ocean, followed by two failed landing tests on a ocean-going platform. As of March 2, 2015, the Air Force's sign for LC-13 was briefly replaced with a sign identifying it as Landing Complex 1. The site was renamed Landing Zone 1 prior to its first use as a landing site. Musk indicated in January 2016 that he thought the likelihood of successful landings for all of the attempted landings in 2016 would be approximately 70 percent, hopefully rising to 90 percent in 2017, and cautioned that the company expects a few more RUDs (Rapid Unscheduled Disassemblies).

SpaceX CRS-9

SpaceX CRS-9, also known as SpX-9, is a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station scheduled for 2016. The mission has been contracted by NASA and will be flown by SpaceX.

Launch schedule history

As of March 2015, the NASA Plan Flight Planning Integration Panel (FPIP) PowerPoint showed the launch was scheduled to occur no earlier than (NET) December 9, 2015. However, following the failure of SpaceX CRS-7 on 28 June 2015, the launch date was pushed back and is still to be decided.

Primary payload

NASA has contracted for the CRS-9 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule.

NASA payload for CRS-9 may include JAXA animal research experiments.

IDA-2, a docking adapter, will be launched in Dragon's trunk.

Secondary payload

SpaceX has the primary control over manifesting, scheduling and loading secondary payloads. However, there are certain restrictions included in their contract with NASA that preclude specified hazards on the secondary payloads, and also require contract-specified probabilities of success and safety margins for any SpaceX reboosts of the secondary satellites once the Falcon 9 second stage has achieved its initial low-Earth orbit (LEO).

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) (known as Cape Kennedy Air Force Station from 1963 to 1973) is an installation of the United States Air Force Space Command's 45th Space Wing, headquartered at nearby Patrick Air Force Base. Located on Cape Canaveral in the state of Florida, CCAFS is the primary launch head of America's Eastern Range with three launch pads currently active (Space Launch Complexes 37-B, 40, and 41). Popularly known as "Cape Kennedy" from 1963 to 1973, and as "Cape Canaveral" from 1949 to 1963 and from 1973 to the present, the facility is south-southeast of NASA's Kennedy Space Center on adjacent Merritt Island, with the two linked by bridges and causeways. The Cape Canaveral AFS Skid Strip provides a 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runway close to the launch complexes for military airlift aircraft delivering heavy and outsized payloads to the Cape.

A number of American space exploration "firsts" were launched from CCAFS, including the first U.S. Earth satellite (1958), first U.S. astronaut (1961), first U.S. astronaut in orbit (1962), first two-man U.S. spacecraft (1965), first U.S. unmanned lunar landing (1966), and first three-man U.S. spacecraft (1968). It was also the launch site for all of the first spacecraft to (separately) fly past each of the planets in the Solar System (1962–1977), the first spacecraft to orbit Mars (1971) and roam its surface (1996), the first American spacecraft to orbit and land on Venus (1978), the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn (2004), and to orbit Mercury (2011), and the first spacecraft to leave the Solar System (1977).