Space Launch Complex 20 (SLC-20) is a launch site at

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the sta ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. It is the northernmost launchpad in Missile Row, located at the northern terminus of ICBM Road between Launch Complex 19 and Launch Complex 34. Originally designated as Launch Complex 20 (LC-20) by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

, SLC-20 was historically built for launching the

HGM-25A Titan I The Martin Marietta SM-68A/HGM-25A Titan I was the United States' first multistage intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), in use from 1959 until 1962. Though the SM-68A was operational for only three years, it spawned numerous follow-on mode ...

ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

tests, and subsequently saw use by the

Titan IIIA The Titan IIIA or Titan 3A was an American expendable launch system, launched four times in 1964 and 1965, to test the Transtage upper stage which was intended for use on the larger Titan IIIC. The Transtage was mounted atop two core stages deriv ...

and various

sounding rockets A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital flight ...

. The pad is currently leased to

Firefly Aerospace Firefly Aerospace, Inc. is an American private aerospace firm based in Cedar Park, Texas, that develops small- and medium-lift launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit. The current company was formed when the assets of the former co ...

for future use by their

Firefly Alpha Firefly Alpha (Firefly α) is a two-stage orbital expendable small lift launch vehicle developed by the American company Firefly Aerospace to compete in the commercial small satellite launch market. Alpha is intended to provide launch o ...

and

Eclipse An eclipse is an astronomical event which occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ...

launch vehicles.

History

Launch Complex 20 was constructed by the

in the late 1950s for the

Titan I The Martin Marietta SM-68A/HGM-25A Titan I was the United States' first multistage intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), in use from 1959 until 1962. Though the SM-68A was operational for only three years, it spawned numerous follow-on mode ...

missile program, alongside LC-19, LC-16, and LC-15 to the south. The pad saw use in this initial configuration in 1960 and 1961, being the site of 16 Titan I launches within that period. LC-20 would later see a brief period of inactivity with the Titan I's replacement by the

LGM-25C Titan II The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company from the earlier HGM-25A Titan I, Titan I missile. Titan II was originally designed and used as an ICBM, but was later adapted as a Med ...

, of which only LC-15 and 16 were used for missile tests. LC-20 and the adjacent LC-19 were modified in 1963 as part of experimentation with the Titan family to allow for orbital launches.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

utilized LC-19 to launch the Titan II GLV as part of

Project Gemini Project Gemini () was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. Conducted after the first American crewed space program, Project Mercury, while the Apollo program was still in early development, Gemini was conceived in 1961 and ...

, while LC-20 was worked by the Air For the Titan III program, being used to launch the

and its

Transtage Transtage, given the United States Air Force designation SSB-10A, was an American upper stage used on Titan III rockets, developed by Martin Marietta and Aerojet. History Transtage was developed in anticipation of a requirement to launch milita ...

third stage. In 1964 and 1965, the launch site was used four times by the Titan IIIA, with three of them being successful. To date, these launches are the only ones out of LC-20 to reach

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. Following being mothballed for two decades, LC-20 saw life with further modications in the late 1980s for the Starbird launch vehicles associated with the shuttle Starlab mission. From 1990 to 1994, the facility saw five launches, all of them being sounding rockets. LC-20 was deactivated in 1996. In 1999, the site was re-activated to support new launch facilities under the direction of

Space Florida Space Florida is the aerospace economic development agency of the State of Florida. Founded in 2006, it works with commercial space companies, other governmental agencies, and academic institutions to develop space-related infrastructure. His ...

for commercial launches. The re-activation included upgrades to Launch Pad A and the construction of a new building along the perimeter road, northeast of the blockhouse. The next year, the pad hosted the launch of two Super Loki sounding rockets. In 2006, the site was being used by NASA's Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a research and development project to provide infrastructure to test, demonstrate and qualify new spaceport technologies. The site was shared with the Florida Air National Guard. In February 2019, Space Florida leased the site to

so that they could launch their

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

and

Beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

(since renamed to Eclipse) launch vehicles from the

Space Coast The Space Coast is a region in the U.S. state of Florida around the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It is one of several "themed" coasts around Florida. All orbital launches from American soil carrying NASA ast ...

Eastern Range The Eastern Range (ER) is an American rocket range (Spaceport) that supports missile and rocket launches from the two major List of rocket launch sites, launch heads located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center ( ...

on prograde launch azimuths, being renamed SLC-20 to follow similar rebrandings of pads such as SLC-40 and SLC-41. To support upcoming operations at Cape Canaveral, Firefly plans to develop both manufacturing facilities at a nearby Space Florida business park as well as the launch site. This compliments a similar lease arrangement made with the military for SLC-2W at

Vandenberg Space Force Base Vandenberg Space Force Base , previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from the ...

as a launch site used for

polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of abo ...

al trajectories. As SLC-2W had a much more active history of being used as a launch pad (being the Western Range site of the

Delta II Delta II was an expendable launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas, and sometimes known as the Thorad Delta 1. Delta II was part of the Delta rocket family, derived directly from the Delta 3000, and entered service in ...

), Firefly opted to prioritize work on there over SLC-20, seeing the maiden flight of the Alpha in September 2021. In 2024 Firefly indicated they were maintaining their lease at SLC-20 while prioritizing Wallops Pad 0A at the

Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) is a commercial space launch facility located at the southern tip of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and south of Chincoteague, Vi ...

as their first East Coast launch site, primarily due to their partnership with

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

in the development of the

Antares 330 Antares (), known during early development as Taurus II, is an American expendable medium-lift launch vehicle developed and built by Orbital Sciences Corporation (later Orbital ATK and Northrop Grumman) with financial support from NASA ...

and Eclipse, also planned to be launched from LP-0A.

Launch statistics

Notes

External links

Spaceport Authority Selects Lockheed Martin to Operate Launch PadsComplex 20 Live Video
{{Merritt Island Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Launch complexes of the United States Space Force Firefly Aerospace facilities