User:Sbb1413/SpaceX landing zones

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SpaceX routinely lands boosters of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, either on a landing zone on the ground or on a drone ship. As of 2020, 20 Falcon 9 boosters landed on land. The landing zones of SpaceX are Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1), Landing Zone 2 (LZ-4), and Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4). LZ-1 and LZ-2 are situated at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, while LZ-4 is situated at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

Landing Zone 1

The Landing Zone 1 was built on the site of the former Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 13,^[1]^[2] which has been demolished. The land was leased in February 2015 from the United States Air Force and marked with a stylized X from the SpaceX company logo.^[3]^[4] Four more 150 feet (46 m) diameter pads were initially planned to be built to support the simultaneous recovery of additional boosters used by the Falcon Heavy, although only one extra pad has been built. Planned infrastructure additions to support operations includes improved roadways for crane movement, a rocket pedestal area, remote-controlled fire suppression systems in case of a landing failure, and a large concrete foundation, away from the future three landing pads, for attaching the booster stage when taking the rocket from vertical to horizontal orientation.^[4]

After approval from the FAA, SpaceX accomplished its first successful landing at the complex with Falcon 9 flight 20 on December 22, 2015 UTC;^[5] this was the 8th controlled-descent test of a Falcon 9 first stage.^[6]^[7] A second successful landing at LZ-1 took place shortly after midnight, local time (EDT) on July 18, 2016, as part of the CRS-9 mission, which was the Falcon 9's 27th flight.^[8] The third successful landing was by the CRS-10 mission's first stage on February 19, 2017, which was the Falcon 9's 30th flight.^[9] Landing Zone 2 was first used by the maiden launch of Falcon Heavy on February 6, 2018, when the rocket's two side boosters touched down on LZ-1 and LZ-2.^[10]

Operations at the facility began after seven earlier landing tests by SpaceX, five of which involved intentional descents into the open ocean, followed by two failed landing tests on an ocean-going platform.^[11]^[12] As of March 2, 2015, the Air Force's sign for LC-13 was briefly replaced with a sign identifying it as Landing Complex.^[13] The site was renamed Landing Zone prior to its first use as a landing site.^[14]^[6] Elon 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 failures.^[15]

Landing Zone 2

In July 2016, SpaceX applied for permission to build two additional landing pads at Landing Zone 1 for landing the boosters from Falcon Heavy flights.^[16]

In May 2017, construction on a second, smaller pad began, called Landing Zone 2. This pad is located about 310 meters to the northwest of the first pad and is used for landing Falcon Heavy side boosters.^[17] By June 2017, the landing pad was modified with a radar reflective paint, to aid with landing precision.^[18]

Vandenberg Air Force Base

Landing Zone 4

SpaceX signed a five-year lease of Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 4W in February 2015, in order to use the area to land reusable launch vehicles at the pad. The location is being used for vertical landing of Return-To-Launch-Site (RTLS) first-stage boosters of the Falcon 9 rockets that are launched from the adjacent SLC-4E launch pad.^[19]^[20] This novel use of SLC-4W had initially surfaced in July 2014 when NASASpaceFlight.com published that SpaceX was considering leasing SLC-4W for use as a RTLS vertical-landing facility for reusable first-stage boosters.^[21] The pad was constructed, and subsequently first used for a rocket booster landing of a first stage of a Falcon 9 launch vehicle in October 2018, recovering the booster that had just launched the Argentinian SAOCOM 1A satellite.^[19]

Principal structures on the launch pad were demolished in September 2014 as construction of the landing pad began.^[22]

It was initially thought that the booster used to launch of a fourth batch of ten Iridium NEXT satellites in December 2017 would be the first to land at VAFB^[23] but this mission was ultimately performed in expendable mode.^[24] In July 2018, SpaceX applied for a permit to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for post-landing communications with a first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket at SLC-4W, pointing to a possible landing sometime in September, possibly for the SAOCOM 1A mission^[25] although this was later rescheduled for October 8 (UTC). A few weeks prior to this first landing attempt it was known to the public, again via FCC permits and also public warnings about sonic booms in the area, that SpaceX had renamed this pad as Landing Zone 4.^[19]

Landing statistics

Landing outcomes

1

2

3

4

5

6

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

Falcon 9 success
Falcon Heavy success
Falcon 9 failure
Falcon Heavy failure

Landing sites

1

2

3

4

5

6