Starting next year, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex guests will be able to explore the nine Merlin main engines, re-entry scorch marks, grid fins used for in-flight steering, and massive landing legs attached to the 156-foot booster built in California. All that hardware helped launch two missions: the Thaicom 8 communications satellite in 2016 and the three-core Falcon Heavy’s premiere in 2018.
Unlike historic rockets in the complex’s “Rocket Garden” like early Atlas and Mercury-Redstone, however, Falcon 9 will get special treatment: it will be mounted horizontally in a new attraction called “Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex.” It was transported from SpaceX’s spaceport facilities to the Visitor Complex on Tuesday. Read more at Florida Today
After more than a decade of launching Falcon 9s, Florida is finally getting one for itself. It’ll be mounted horizontally in a new two-story building at the KSC Visitor Complex slated for opening next year called“Gateway.”
— Emre Kelly (@EmreKelly) September 17, 2021
Flew two missions: Thaicom 8 and Falcon Heavy demo. pic.twitter.com/7o3TPmWNXh
Its first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit. Falcon Heavy was designed from the outset to carry humans into space and restores the possibility of flying missions with crew to the Moon or Mars. – SpaceX
