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Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A

Historic launch pad operated by NASA and SpaceX

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch sub-complexes, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The main launch pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, was built in the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V launch vehicle, and has been used to support NASA crewed space flight missions, including the historic Apollo 11 moon landing and the Space Shuttle. Since 2014 the site has been leased by SpaceX and supports launches of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. As of November 2025, SpaceX is expanding the site to support Starship operations. Other plans include adding two landing zones for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to conduct "Return-to-launch-site" landings.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A” is historic launch pad operated by NASA and SpaceX. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Kennedy, Space and Center, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 2025—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Kennedy, Space and Center is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “historic launch pad operated by NASA and SpaceX” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The first chronological checks are 2014 and 2025.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
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  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A primary sources, Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A archive and Kennedy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.