Two Falcon Heavy side boosters stand on Landing Zones 1 and 2 (background and foreground) after returning from space in October 2023. Credit: SpaceX
By Stephen Clark,
Published by Ars Technica, 4 September 2025
There are no Falcon Heavy launches this year, so now’s the time for SpaceX to act.
Remember the first time you saw a SpaceX rocket nail a bullseye landing after hurtling back from space? How about the first time two boosters landed side by side, punctuating the inaugural launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket with thrilling synchrony?
Some of SpaceX’s most defining moments happened on a piece of beachfront property at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This is where SpaceX first landed a reusable Falcon 9 booster coming back from space and, a few years later, landed two boosters side by side.
In all, SpaceX has landed 66 Falcon boosters at Landing Zones 1 and 2 since recovering the first Falcon 9 booster on December 21, 2015. Now, SpaceX is preparing to hand the landing zones back to the US Space Force, which owns the property and has reallocated the real estate to two startup launch companies.
SpaceX plans to build two landing zones for Falcon rockets next to the company’s existing launch pads in Florida, aligning with a recent Space Force policy to co-locate launch and landing sites on the same property.
The Space Force says co-located launch and landing pads will free up room for the spaceport to host more launch companies and shrink the area around the base that safety authorities must evacuate for each mission. Ultimately, this will reduce interruptions and scheduling conflicts between SpaceX and other launch providers at the Cape Canaveral spaceport.
Staying power
The Federal Aviation Administration issued a record of decision on Wednesday approving SpaceX’s plan to more than double the number of Falcon 9 launches from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40), the busiest of the company’s four operational launch pads. The FAA concluded that the proposed launch rate “would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment.”
The environmental review paves the way for SpaceX to launch up to 120 Falcon 9 rockets per year from SLC-40, an increase from 50 launches covered in a previous FAA review in 2020. Since then, the FAA has issued SpaceX temporary approval to go beyond 50 launches from SLC-40. For example, SpaceX launched 62 of its overall 132 Falcon 9 flights last year from SLC-40.
SpaceX’s goal for this year is 170 Falcon 9 launches, and the company is on pace to come close to this target. Most Falcon 9 launches carry SpaceX’s own Starlink broadband satellites into orbit. The FAA’s environmental approval opens the door for more flights from SpaceX’s busiest launch pad.
But launch pad availability is not the only hurdle limiting how many Falcon 9 flights can take off in a year. There’s also the rate of production for Falcon 9 upper stages, which are new on each flight, and the time it takes for each vessel in SpaceX’s fleet of drone ships (one in California, two in Florida) to return to port with a recovered booster and redeploy back to sea again for the next mission. SpaceX lands Falcon 9 boosters on offshore drone ships after most of its launches and only brings the rocket back to an onshore landing on missions carrying lighter payloads to orbit.
When a Falcon 9 booster does return to landing on land, it targets one of SpaceX’s recovery zones at military-run spaceports in Florida and California. SpaceX’s landing zone at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California is close to the Falcon 9 launch pad there.
The Space Force wants SpaceX, and potentially other future reusable rocket companies, to replicate the side-by-side launch and landing pads at Cape Canaveral.
To do that, the FAA also gave the green light Wednesday for SpaceX to construct and operate a new rocket landing zone at SLC-40 and conduct up to 34 first-stage booster landings there each year. The landing zone will consist of a 280-foot diameter concrete pad surrounded by a 60-foot-wide gravel apron. The landing zone’s broadest diameter, including the apron, will measure 400 feet.
SpaceX is in an earlier phase of planning for a Falcon landing pad at historic Launch Complex-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, just a few miles north of SLC-40. SpaceX uses LC-39A as a launch pad for most Falcon 9 crew launches, all Falcon Heavy missions, and, in the future, flights of the company’s gigantic next-generation rocket, Starship. SpaceX foresees Starship as a replacement for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, but the company’s continuing investment in Falcon-related infrastructure shows the workhorse rocket will stick around for a while.
The new landing locations at SLC-40 and LC-39A will replace Landing Zones 1 and 2, nearly 10 miles to the south. SpaceX landed its last rocket at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) last month but will continue using Landing Zone 2 for now. Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, told reporters in July that the company is working with the Space Force and NASA to determine the “right time” to move out of Landing Zone 2.
A break in launches of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket makes this a good time to make the transition. Falcon Heavy rockets have two side boosters, both of which typically return to Landing Zones 1 and 2 at the same time. These kinds of double rocket landings won’t be possible again until SpaceX activates the new landing pad at SLC-40.
SpaceX doesn’t have any Falcon Heavy launches on its schedule until the second half of 2026 at the earliest. That should provide ample time to get a new landing site up and running at SLC-40, and maybe LC-39A, too.
The Space Force reallocated the land around LZs-1 and 2 to a pair of small rocket companies in 2023. The two companies, Vaya Space and Phantom Space, will share the property, originally known as Launch Complex-13 when it was used for Atlas rocket launches from 1958 until 1978.
Vaya and Phantom have not announced when they might start building their launch facilities. Neither company has attempted to launch an orbital-class rocket before, but both claim they will do so in 2026 or 2027.
Vaya and Phantom are operating on limited budgets compared to other rocket startups that have reached the launch pad. Each company has raised less than $50 million, well short of the fundraising achievements of companies like Isar Aerospace of Germany, Australia’s Gilmour Space, and Japan’s Space One, all of which recently tried—and failed—to send their first rockets into orbit.
See: Original Article
