The demolition began Thursday, removing the structure used by previous tenant United Launch Alliance, as SpaceX Champing began construction on Bit for the new spaceship launch site for the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
ULA used the Space Launch Complex 37 on its Delta IV class rocket, but in April 2024 the final Delta IV Heavy Mission flew in April 2024, and ULA abandoned the site’s lease.
A video posted to X by journalist Michael Seeley shows the moment when the mobile service tower, with the ULA logo falling, after a fiery explosion that took out two lightning towers and a fixed umbilical tower. The site was previously used in the 1960s for the launch of eight Saturn 1 and 1Bs supporting the Apollo program.
End of the Era: @elonmusk is wasting no time as the LC-37 was cleared on Thursday morning and was given way to the spacecraft. pic.twitter.com/pg614jppgr
– Michael Seeley (@mike_seeley) June 12, 2025
Then, in 2002, the Boeing Delta IV Rockets first became home. Boeing worked with Lockheed Martin to form the ULA in 2006.
Unlike Cape Canaveral and other launch sites at nearby Kennedy Space Center, the Delta IV rocket, equipped with the rocket being caught in the pad, was standing up inside a protective mobile service tower that rolled out of the pad before launch. From 2002 to 2024, the SLC-37 hosted the launch of 35 Delta IV Rockets.
However, its infrastructure was transformed into tile rub under demolition operations overseen by SpaceX and Space Force.
SpaceX awaits the final results of the Air Force Department’s Environmental Impact Statement, scheduled to be released this fall.
EIS was able to clear the path to complete its own launch infrastructure for either of the two planned Space Coast sites, for Starships and Super Heavy Rockets that SpaceX is developing. The other is KSC’s launch complex 39-A, with SpaceX already having pads for the Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy will be on sale. The Federal Aviation Administration operates its own EIS for the KSC Starship site.
Together, the two spaceship pads were able to support as many as 120 launches a year, with up to twice as much landings. The Super Heavy Booster returns to the tower minutes after launch and is captured by a swivel arm known as the “chopsticks”, while the upper stage is designed to make a vertical landing at the end of the orbital mission.
For now, SpaceX is only running sub-orbit test flights for the giant rocket from its Texas site Starbase, but the company says it wants to do its first operational flight from Space Coast by the end of 2025. SpaceX continues to fly from the Space Launch Complex 40 to the Falcon 9 Rockets.
Meanwhile, ULA has turned its attention to Atlas V at Space Launch Complex 41 and other Space Coast launch sites set for New Vulcan Rockets 41.
