Kennedy Space Center's launch infrastructure is not ready for the super-heavy rocket era. A new NASA Office of Inspector General report finds the Florida spaceport is aging, capacity-constrained, and unable to meet growing demand from SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn.
The report covers both Kennedy Space Center and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, but Kennedy is the critical failure point. NASA's own inspector general states the infrastructure 'does not provide the capacity to meet the growing demands of the agency and its partners,' which now includes the two most powerful commercial launch vehicles ever built.
The full report is worth reading for the specific capacity gaps and projected demand figures that reveal how far behind the investment curve NASA actually is. This is not a future problem. Starship and New Glenn are flying now.
[READ ORIGINAL →]