Launch Complex 36: the Florida pad that led America to the Moon, and plans to again

Image: NASA

From the Surveyor landers that proved the Moon could be landed on, to Blue Origin’s New Glenn and the Blue Moon landers bound for the south pole, Launch Complex 36 links two great eras of lunar exploration.

On the Atlantic coast of Cape Canaveral, a little south of the old Missile Row, sits a launch site that has quietly shaped the story of lunar exploration for more than sixty years. Launch Complex 36 helped prove that a spacecraft could land gently on the Moon before any astronaut tried it. Today it is the home of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket and the planned starting point for a new generation of lunar landers.

Built for the Atlas-Centaur

The complex was built in the early 1960s for the Atlas-Centaur, a rocket that paired the Atlas booster with Centaur, the first upper stage to burn liquid hydrogen. Pad 36A hosted its first launch on 8 May 1962. The early years were hard. On 2 March 1965 an Atlas-Centaur carrying a dummy Surveyor lander lost thrust seconds after lift-off and fell back onto the pad, one of the biggest explosions the Cape had ever seen. NASA responded by finishing a second pad, 36B, which flew for the first time that August.

The Surveyor landers

LC-36's great lunar contribution was Surveyor. On 30 May 1966 an Atlas-Centaur lifted off from Pad 36A carrying Surveyor 1. On 2 June it touched down in the Ocean of Storms, becoming the first American spacecraft to make a controlled soft landing on the Moon.

All seven Surveyor missions launched from the complex between 1966 and 1968, and five landed successfully. Between them they sent back tens of thousands of photographs and dug into the lunar soil. They answered a question that worried Apollo planners: was the surface firm enough to hold a landing craft, or a deep layer of dust that might swallow one?

Surveyor 3, launched from Pad 36B on 17 April 1967, has a unique place in history. In November 1969 the Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed within walking distance of it and brought parts of it home. It is still the only robotic spacecraft ever visited by people on another world.

Beyond the Moon

The complex went on to launch Mariner 9, the first spacecraft to orbit another planet, Pioneer 10 and 11 to Jupiter and Saturn, and Mariner 10 to Mercury. Upgraded Atlas rockets flew from LC-36 until February 2005, when the last Atlas III left Pad 36B. The old towers were brought down in controlled explosions in June 2007, and the site stood empty.

A new era with New Glenn

In 2015 Blue Origin took over the lease and rebuilt the complex as a single, much larger pad for its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket. New Glenn flew for the first time on 16 January 2025. On its second flight, in November 2025, it sent NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes towards Mars and landed its booster on a ship at sea.

The return to the Moon is where LC-36 matters most. Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK1, an uncrewed cargo lander named Endurance, is due to launch from the pad and aims to land on a ridge near Shackleton crater at the lunar south pole. Its larger sibling, Blue Moon MK2, is being developed for NASA's Artemis programme to carry astronauts to the surface.

A setback and a rebuild

Progress has not been smooth. On 28 May 2026, during a static fire test ahead of New Glenn's fourth flight, the rocket exploded on the pad and caused significant damage. Blue Origin is rebuilding and aims to fly again before the end of 2026, with the Endurance mission now expected no earlier than the first quarter of 2027.

Why it matters

Few places link the two great eras of lunar exploration so directly. Sixty years ago, rockets from LC-36 proved the Moon could be landed on. If Blue Origin's plans hold, the same stretch of Florida coast will send the landers that help people live and work at the lunar south pole. For anyone who owns a piece of the Moon, it is a site well worth watching.