Aerial view of Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA has leased to SpaceX use of the historic pad to launch the company's rockets over the next 20 years.NASA

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, and Kennedy Space Center director Robert Cabana are seen together at Kennedy's Launch Pad 39A, which NASA leased to SpaceX for commercial use on April 14, 2014.Robert Z. Pearlman/collectSPACE.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. One of NASA's most historic launch pads is now under new management.

Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida is now under the direction of SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies), the private spaceflight company headed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. The launch pad, which was the site where Apollo 11 lifted off on the first manned moon landing in July 1969, will now support the company's rockets and spacecraft as they depart for Earth orbit, and possibly destinations beyond.

"Today, this historic site, from which numerous Apollo and space shuttle missions began, and from which I first flew and left the planet on STS-61C on Columbia, is beginning a new mission as a commercial launch site," said Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator and former astronaut, during a press conference held at the pad.

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On Monday, NASA signed a property agreement with SpaceX beginning a 20-year lease to occupy and use the launch pad. Over the course of the next two decades, the Hawthorne, California-based company will operate and maintain the facility at its own expense.

"Pad 39A is a historic pad, as we all know, and I am so excited that NASA selected us to be one of their partners and also to be their partner in developing 39A as we move forward into the future of space launch," Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, said.

"We'll make great use of this pad, I promise," she added.

NASA chose SpaceX to lease Complex 39A in December 2013, after determining it no longer had a use for the 40-year-old pad. Instead, the space agency plans to use Pad 39B, Pad 39A's Apollo-era twin, to support future flights of its Space Launch System rockets and Orion capsules to fly astronauts to the vicinity of the moon and out to Mars.

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NASA hands over historic Apollo-era launch pad to SpaceX