Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36

Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) is a launch complex located at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Located south of the Missile Row launch range, the complex originally consisted of two pads—designated LC-36A and LC-36B—to support the flights of Atlas launch vehicles equipped with a Centaur upper stage. From the 1960s to the 1980s, LC-36 was used by NASA and the United States Air Force to launch many payloads from the Atlas-Centaur and its derivatives, including the Pioneer, Surveyor, and Mariner probes. During the late 1980s, LC-36B was also used to launch the Atlas G, and General Dynamics (and later Lockheed Martin) modified the two pads to support the larger Atlas I, Atlas II, and Atlas III throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Following the Atlas program's relocation to Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) in 2005, LC-36 stood vacant until Blue Origin acquired the lease in 2015 for use by their heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. The company made extensive modifications to the complex during this time, including demolishing 36A and 36B to build one large pad in place, as well as integrating the neighboring Launch Complex 11 (LC-11) into the facility. Following this large-scale renovation, the new era of LC-36 commenced with the maiden flight of New Glenn in January 2025.

History

LC-36 was originally constructed by the US government in the early 1960s in order to launch the Atlas-Centaur rocket, with first launch in May 1962.

LC-36A was the scene of the biggest on-pad explosion in Cape history when Atlas-Centaur AC-5 fell back onto the pad on March 2, 1965. The accident spurred NASA to complete work on LC-36B which had been abandoned when it was 90% finished.

LC-36B was built near LC-36A "due to the Atlas-Centaur’s increasing flight rate – and low reliability early on."

The pad was modified by the operator of Atlas during the late 1980s to be able to launch the Atlas I, with first launch occurring in July 1990, and was subsequently modified two additional times during the 1990s to launch the Atlas II and Atlas III launch vehicles. Atlas III made its sixth and final launch from LC-36 in 2005.

There was a total of 68 and 77 launches from pads 36A and 36B, respectively, while the US government operated the launch complex in the first five decades of spaceflight.

Interregnum

The pad was unused from mid-2005 through 2015.

The legacy Atlas-Centaur umbilical towers of both pads were demolished in 2006. The mobile service towers were both demolished in controlled explosions on June 16, 2007. Tower B was demolished at 13:59 GMT (09:59 EDT) and tower A followed twelve minutes later at 14:11 (10:11 EDT).

In 2008, Aviation Week magazine reported that the U.S. Air Force committed to lease Launch Complex 36 to Space Florida for future use by the Athena III launch system, but that program never moved forward.

In March 2010, the USAF 45th Space Wing issued real property licenses to Space Florida for Space Launch Complexes 36 and 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Moon Express leased the pad in February 2015 from Space Florida as a development and test site for its commercial lunar operations and its lunar lander flight test vehicles.

In 2015, Blue Origin signed a long-term lease of launch site from Space Florida for launching Blue's orbital rockets, after Space Florida had previously leased the facility from the USAF in 2010 in order to facilitate commercial use of the land and facilities since the Air Force no longer required use of the launch complex. Moon Express and Blue Origin shared LC-36, delineated into LC-36A and LC-36B respectively, until Moon Express announced its relocation to Launch Complexes 17 and 18 in 2016, allowing Blue Origin full use of the LC-36 facility. In early 2016, Blue intended to begin orbital launches by 2020, as of 2019 they are expected to begin from LC-36 no earlier than 2024, although the launch finally occurred on 16 January 2025.

Blue Origin

On September 15, 2015, Blue Origin announced it would use Launch Complex 36 for launches of its orbital launch vehicle later in the decade. Blue had the lease in place for Launch Complex 36 by late 2015 from the Florida state space agency, Space Florida, and will manufacture their new BE-4-powered orbital launch vehicle at the nearby Exploration Park, also a part of the Space Florida land complex.

By October 2015, the pad design and configuration was not yet publicly known. Blue broke ground for the facility to initiate construction activity on the site in June 2016.

By March 2016, the first launch of the Blue orbital launch vehicle New Glenn was estimated to be no earlier than 2020 and that target date had not changed by the time high-level specifications for the new launcher were unveiled in September 2016, nor by the time construction of the launch site was well underway in September 2018. New Glenn will be a very large 7.0-meter (23 ft)-diameter vehicle. The first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 methane/oxygen engines producing 17.1 meganewtons (3,850,000 lbf) total thrust at launch. The first stage will be reusable and is designed to land vertically.

Blue has also leased the adjacent land—formerly known as LC-11—to use as a ground-based rocket engine test facility. Construction of the new launch complex and engine test facility was still underway in September 2018. In addition to LC-11, Blue also leased LC-12 to the north, which has been in use as a storage site for various hardware surrounding New Glenn.

Although Blue has been publicly quiet about the status of the launch complex construction, high-resolution aerial photography released after Hurricane Dorian in September 2019 showed that facility foundation work is in place—including for the horizontal integration facility, the launch service structure, lightning tower, and water tower—and above-ground steel construction has commenced. In September 2019, the propellant tank farm was in the process of being installed.

Launch statistics

LC-36

• New Glenn 7×2
• New Glenn 9×4

All flights operated by Blue Origin.

Upcoming launches

LC-36A

• Atlas-Centaur
• Atlas II

Atlas-Centaur

All flights operated by NASA.

Atlas II

All flights before 1994 operated by General Dynamics, from 1994 to January 1995 by Martin Marietta, and since April 1995 by Lockheed Martin.

LC-36B

• Atlas-Centaur
• Atlas G
• Atlas I
• Atlas II
• Atlas III

Atlas-Centaur and Atlas G

All flights operated by NASA.

Atlas I, II, and III

All flights before 1994 operated by General Dynamics, from 1994 to January 1995 by Martin Marietta, and since March 1995 by Lockheed Martin.

Gallery

• An Atlas-Centaur at LC-36A prior to the launch of Pioneer 10.
• An Atlas III launches from LC-36B.
• The MSS of Launch Complex 36A falls to the ground after critical supports are destroyed in a controlled explosion.
• LC-36 hosting the maiden flight of New Glenn.

See also

• List of Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island launch sites