NASA's Kennedy Space Center Will Be Busy In 2024

Illustration of launch at the Kennedy Space Center (doc. NASA).

JAKARTA Overall, all field centers belonging to the United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) will be busy, including the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) facility in Florida.

Next year, the KSC facility will be more congested than other NASA facilities. The reason is, this place will welcome many new missions, such as the first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, the Artemis II program, to the launch of Earth observer satellites.

The first mission KSC must complete is the inaugural launch of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) United Centaur (ULA) debut rocket. This rocket will take off next year with Astrobotic's Pregrine Mission-1 lander.

Still in the CLPS initiative, KSC will launch its second launch with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. This rocket will land Intuitive Machines Nova-C at the Moon's South Pole. This lander will carry payloads that focus on lunar exploration.

The next important mission that must be carried out by KSC is the development of the Artemis II program. In this mission, the Space Launch System (SLS) will begin to be prepared and integrated inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Furthermore, there are several launch programs, such as crew flight tests for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, launching Crew-8 and Crew-9 into orbit, and launching the Axiom Mission 3 and Axiom Mission 4 to the space station.

Meanwhile, KSC will also be busy with several science missions. Next year, KSC will be a facility for the launch of CubeSat initiatives and the launch of Spacecraftsurance, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE).

In addition, there is still the launch of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) satellite, the European Clipper observation mission, and the launch of the Polar Radiant Energy in the Infrared Experiment (PREFIRE) and Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE).