Main Engine Cut OffSpaceX Leases Another Canaveral Facility for Dragon 2 Processing
James Dean, for Florida Today:
The 45th Space Wing said work on the capsule called Crew Dragon or Dragon 2 would take place in Area 59, a former satellite processing facility on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
“This summer, they should be receiving their first Dragon 2 capsule, which will directly support NASA and the return of astronauts (launching into orbit) from U.S. soil,” said Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, the Wing commander, at a recent transportation summit in Port Canaveral.
The language used here is imprecise, so it’s tough to draw conclusions, but “summer” implies a slip for the uncrewed test flight of Dragon 2, currently scheduled for April.
Unless he meant to say that SpaceX would be receiving their first Dragon 2 spacecraft at Area 59 this summer, meaning they would process the very first Dragon 2 elsewhere. The former seems more likely, but the latter is a possibility.
This also makes me wonder if the Dragon processing facility over near LZ-1 is still planned, and if each location will play different roles.
Update: Per NASASpaceFlight.com, SpaceX’s first flight has tentatively slipped to August:
According to the latest long-term International Space Station (ISS) schedule, known as the Flight Planning Integration Panel (FPIP) document (L2), both the Boeing and SpaceX Commercial Crew test missions are showing a work to date of late August 2018 for uncrewed test flights and year-end 2018 for crewed test flights to the orbital outpost. All the flights are two weeks in length.