BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — For the first time in weeks, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is back open – and just in time for the historic crewed Demo-2 rocket launch on the Space Coast scheduled for Saturday.
But if you were hoping for a ticket, there’s bad news: They’re already sold out.
Return to space: Meet the astronauts set to liftoff from the Space Coast
The visitor complex reopened Thursday with new procedures in place for employees and guests including mandatory temperature checks and masks.
Except for launch days, the visitor complex will operate at 25% capacity.
“We’re encouraging folks to go online and look at our website and pre-order your tickets,” visitor complex COO Therrin Protze said. “And if we do reach a capacity level, then we will close the park and make sure that we keep it safe.”
While tickets to see the commercial crewed launch to the International Space Station from the visitor complex are sold out, that won’t deter people like Noah Butler and his father from still seeing the launch.
Read: These 9 classic movies about space will get you ready for Saturday’s launch
“It’s crazy that the Commercial Crew is going up,” Butler said. “I don’t know if people understand the significance of the Commercial Crew. We’ve been getting all our rides from Russia.”
Protze said Launch America is “really having a great effect on the space industry and the visitor complex.”
Wednesday’s unfavorable weather conditions kept veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley from lifting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.
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“We simply had too much electricity in the atmosphere,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said. “There really wasn’t a lightning storm or anything like that, but there was a concern that if we did launch, it could actually trigger lightning. We made the right decision.”
NASA and SpaceX are targeting a launch for 3:22 p.m. Saturday. A second launch attempt, if necessary, is set for 3 p.m. on Sunday
According to the visitor complex website, tickets are still available for Sunday.
Read: SpaceX, NASA reset for historic crewed mission after scrubbing launch
The upcoming flight test will serve as an end-to-end test of SpaceX’s crew transportation system from launch to docking to splashdown. The mission will also pave the way for NASA to certify the Crew Dragon for regular, crewed flights to the space station.
Channel 9 will show the launch live on air and on its website.