SpaceX has signed a 20-year lease with NASA to operate a launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On Monday, the space agency announced that it had reached an agreement that would see SpaceX take over maintenance and operation of Launch Complex 39A, a site that saw the first and last Space Shuttle launch and 11 Apollo missions, including the Apollo 11 flight that took Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. NASA, which has increasingly outsourced routine missions to the private sector, will no longer foot the bill for upkeep. "SpaceX will maximize the use of pad 39A both to the benefit of the commercial launch industry as well as the American taxpayer," SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell says.
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