Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 - Future Use - LC-39B

LC-39B

NASA deactivated LC-39B on January 1, 2007, thus making the nighttime launch of STS-116, which occurred on December 9, 2006, its last shuttle mission.

Between the STS-116 launch and the STS-125 mission, when Endeavour was placed on LC-39B in the event NASA needed to launch the STS-400 rescue mission, contractors installed three new 600 ft.-tall lightning mast towers similar to those used on the Atlas V and Delta IV launch pads at nearby Cape Canaveral. At the same time, they removed the existing single lightning mast and crane assembly. (The crane assembly dated back to the Apollo program.) With the completion of STS-125, contractors converted LC-39B for the successful test flight of Ares I-X on October 28, 2009.

Since the Ares I-X flight, NASA proceeded with plans to strip LC-39B of its Flight Service Structure (FSS), returning the location to an Apollo-like "clean pad" design for the first time since 1977. This approach will make the pad available to multiple types of vehicles which arrive at the pad with service structures on the mobile launcher platform as opposed to custom structures on the pad. The LH₂, LOX, and water tanks (used for the sound suppression system) are the only structures left from the Shuttle era.

As of February 2011, NASA was offering the pad and facilities to private companies to fly missions for the commercial space market.

As of June 2012, repairs and modifications to selected facility systems at Launch Complex (LC) 39B for Space Launch System (SLS) processing and launch operations are finishing the first phase of a five-phase project. The second phase of this project is currently budgeted at $89.2 million ($6.1 million in FY 2012, $28.5 million in FY 2013, $9.4 million in FY 2014 and $45.2 million in the outyears).

• For the last time in the Shuttle program, Space Shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour are placed at LC39A and LC39B in preparation for the STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

• Ares I-X launches from LC-39B, 15:30 UTC, October 28, 2009.

• Removal of the top floor of the fixed service structure on LC39B in March 2011