Space Florida Finishes First Phase of Renovations to Former Shuttle Facilities
Thursday, April 11, 2013
By: Nicole Creston

April 11, 2013 | WMFE- Space Florida announced today that it has completed the first phase of renovations of former Space Shuttle facilities. The overhaul project is part of Space Florida's unique partnership with NASA, and its goal is to make Kennedy Space Center more attractive for commercial space flight business.

[Image: Space Shuttle Discovery in Orbiter Processing Facility 3 before the end of the shuttle program in 2011]

Don’t call it Orbiter Processing Facility 3 anymore – the massive service bay where space shuttles used to be emptied out after one mission and prepped for the next, has been emptied out itself. 

Space Florida, the state’s aerospace economic development agency, says the now-finished Phase One included demolition of more than 1,000 tons of metal that made up the quote “obsolete and abandoned Space Shuttle processing infrastructure” inside. 

The building even has a new name – the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, or C3PF for short. Space Florida teamed up with a construction firm for the demolition, and an architectural firm finished up Phase One of the project with a detailed design to modernize C3PF.

Space Florida says they’ll be working with that design as they continue construction on the facility throughout the spring, with the goal of attracting commercial space flight tenants to Kennedy Space Center.

The Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.