With SLC-40 now ready for crew launches, there are four launch pads at Cape Canaveral designed to support astronaut flights, alongside crew-rated pads for NASA’s Space Launch System and ULA’s Atlas V rocket. A decade ago, there were none, and during the heyday of NASA’s Apollo and shuttle programs, there were two.

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Upgrades at SpaceX’s most-used launch pad in Florida will get a trial run Thursday with the liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon cargo ship heading for the International Space Station.

The automated Dragon supply ship will take off on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, then head for a month-long stay at the International Space Station, where it will deliver more than 6,000 pounds of hardware, fresh food, and experiments for the lab’s seven-person crew.

This week, SpaceX technicians have used the newly installed launch tower and crew access arm at SLC-40 to load time-sensitive experiments and supplies into the Cargo Dragon capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket.

“Astronaut and personnel safety is SpaceX’s highest priority, which is why I had to personally test the new slide,” she posted on X, alongside a wink emoji.

“The team took commercially available off the shelf technology and applied it to the crew tower,” Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, wrote on X.

“Thanks to this new state-of-the-art crew tower required for our human spaceflight missions, that late-load cargo operation got a massive upgrade, too," Walker said.

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