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Cape neighbors Stoke and Relativity advance LC-14 and LC-16 toward first flights

Along Missile Row at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Stoke Space and Relativity Space are building out launch sites almost side by side.

Launch Complex 14 and Launch Complex 16 sit as next-door neighbors on the Space Coast, two historic pads now being readied for two very different reusable rockets: Stoke’s fully reusable Nova and Relativity’s partially reusable Terran R.

The latest NASASpaceflight Cape flyover captured that contrast in sharp relief. LC-14 shows little new construction. LC-16 is still in the middle of a major build.

LC-14: a finished-looking pad waiting on Nova

Launch Complex 14 is probably not the fully reusable rocket pad most people picture when they think of the next generation of Space Coast infrastructure, but it is at least one of four such sites now taking shape along the coast. Stoke will launch Nova from the complex, and the latest aerial views show a site that has been kept remarkably tidy. There has not been any substantial change since the last flyover.

That lack of visible construction is itself a useful data point. An unused-looking pad often means the civil work is complete and the site is waiting on a vehicle. LC-14 now appears ready to receive a Nova rocket. The missing piece is not the ground system so much as the rocket itself.

For now, Stoke is still working that hardware at its manufacturing and test facilities in Washington state. The company has wrapped up the qualification campaigns for Nova’s first and second stages, and flight hardware for the vehicle’s first flight is under production and testing. With the Cape pad looking complete, it would not be a surprise if, in a few months, Nova hardware starts arriving on the Space Coast for the company’s first launch campaign. Later this year or early next year remains a realistic window to start seeing a vehicle at LC-14.

The flyover impression is consistent with that timeline. The complex is clean, and little has changed since the last pass overhead. LC-14 now reads less like an active construction site and more like a finished launch complex standing by for its tenant.

LC-16: Relativity still in the thick of pad work

The contrast next door is stark. Relativity’s Launch Complex 16 is still undergoing major work. Where Stoke’s neighboring pad has gone quiet, Relativity’s site is stacked with activity: lightning towers going up, the Horizontal Integration Facility coming online, Terran R ground systems taking shape, and commodity lines still being finished at the pad.

From the air, crews can be seen stacking lightning towers. The Horizontal Integration Facility has been energized, and the bridge crane inside has completed a proof load test. The transporter-erector’s upper strongback has been sent to the HIF, and cleanroom outfitting is underway. Transporter-erector rails are installed and visible in satellite imagery, site power is on via two 22 kV feeds, and water systems are being finalized. Relativity is also starting to assemble Terran R’s transporter-erector and wrapping up propellant and water systems at the pad.

That ground work is running in parallel with vehicle milestones. As the launch site approaches readiness, Relativity has completed qualification testing of Terran R’s first and second stages and is preparing for the first hot fire test of the second stage at the company’s test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The first-flight booster has also been manufactured and is currently undergoing engine outfitting. That booster should head to Stennis in the coming months for its own hot fire test campaign.

In other words, Relativity is still building the Cape end of the operation while the flight stages are moving through the last major test gates off-site. LC-16 is no longer an empty historic plot, but it is not yet the quiet, finished neighbor that LC-14 has become.

Project Forge and a Blue Origin-like ramp

The pad work is only part of Relativity’s Space Coast plan. Much like Blue Origin, Relativity also intends a massive ramp in cadence once Terran R starts launching. In recent weeks, Space Florida unveiled Project Forge, an expansion effort by Relativity to bring in hundreds of jobs in the near term and scale facilities across the Space Coast.

The project was announced in July by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis while at the Farnborough International Air Show in the United Kingdom. Relativity plans to invest in new facilities across the Space Coast and employ thousands of new workers through 2034 to support Terran R operations as the company plans for a surge in launches. Relativity CEO Eric Schmidt has a clear operational reason to want that investment: Terran R is expected to help with the mass deployment of his own orbital data centers.

The new facilities will include a payload processing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, an expansion of Launch Complex 16, an upper stage test site, and a new manufacturing facility. The parallels with Blue Origin are hard to miss. A Cape payload processing facility, an upper stage test site, a new manufacturing plant, and a larger launch complex footprint are the same kinds of pieces Blue has built or is planning to build. That is not a surprise. Both companies are chasing higher launch cadence, and both are treating the Space Coast as more than a single pad.

Two pads, two timelines, one stretch of the Cape

Taken together, the flyover shows two neighboring commercial programs at different points on the same road. Stoke’s LC-14 is clean, largely unchanged, and apparently ready to receive Nova. The rocket is still in Washington, but first- and second-stage qualification is wrapped and flight hardware is in production and test. Relativity’s LC-16, immediately next door in the Cape’s launch landscape, is still a construction site: lightning towers, an energized HIF, transporter-erector hardware moving into place, power on, and water and propellant systems heading toward completion. Terran R’s stages have come through qualification, the second stage is lining up for a Stennis hot fire, and the first flight booster is being outfitted for the same path.

If Nova hardware does arrive later this year or early next, Missile Row will have two next-door commercial neighbors moving from pad buildout into launch campaign at almost the same time. One will do so from a finished historic pad. The other is still finishing the last major systems on the site beside it.

The post appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.