In a battle of technology titans for the right to lease a historic NASA launch pad in Florida, SpaceX beat out competitor Blue Origin, the US space agency said Friday.
The California-based SpaceX is owned by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, and Blue Origin is a venture of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
"NASA will begin working with SpaceX to negotiate the terms of its lease for LC-39A," the space agency said in a statement, referring to the name of the launch pad.
SpaceX became the first private company to send an unmanned cargo capsule to the International Space Station in 2012, and has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA for 12 ISS supply trips.
Blue Origin is working on a rocket-propelled vehicle designed to fly people just to the edge of space, in sub-orbit.
It also has plans to develop a reusable booster rocket and a space vehicle that could reach orbit.
NASA will reserve its other key launch pad, 39B, for its own use as it develops a deep space launch system and multipurpose vehicle that will some day carry humans to an asteroid and even Mars, the space agency said.
The pad SpaceX will lease, LC-39A, was the launch spot for the Apollo 11 on its first manned mission to land on the Moon in 1969, the first space shuttle mission in 1981 and the last shuttle mission in 2011.
