![]() The major buildings in KSC's Industrial Area were designed by architect Charles Luckman. NASA began land acquisition in 1962, buying title to 131 square miles (340 km 2) and negotiating with the state of Florida for an additional 87 square miles (230 km 2). Therefore, the decision was made to build a new LOC site located adjacent to Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island. Also, Cape Canaveral was inadequate to host the new launch facility design required for the mammoth 363-foot (111 m) tall, 7,500,000-pound-force (33,000 kN) thrust Saturn V rocket, which would be assembled vertically in a large hangar and transported on a mobile platform to one of several launch pads. On July 1, 1962, the Launch Operations Directorate was separated from MSFC to become the Launch Operations Center (LOC). Kennedy's 1961 goal of a crewed lunar landing by 1970 required an expansion of launch operations. In December 1959, the Department of Defense transferred 5,000 personnel and the Missile Firing Laboratory to NASA to become the Launch Operations Directorate under NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. ![]() Since 1949, the military had been performing launch operations at what would become Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. There is also a Visitor Complex on site that is open to the public. Among the unique facilities at KSC are the 525-foot (160 m) tall Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking NASA's largest rockets, the Launch Control Center, which conducts space launches at KSC, the Operations and Checkout Building, which houses the astronauts dormitories and suit-up area, a Space Station factory, and a 3-mile (4.8 km) long Shuttle Landing Facility. There are about 700 facilities and buildings grouped throughout the center's 144,000 acres (580 km 2). Since 2010, the center has worked to become a multi-user spaceport through industry partnerships, even adding a new launch pad ( LC-39C) in 2015. Īdditionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial crew missions and researches food production and in-situ resource utilization for off-Earth exploration. Starting with the fourth Gemini mission, the NASA launch control center in Florida ( Mercury Control Center, later the Launch Control Center) began handing off control of the vehicle to the Mission Control Center in Houston, shortly after liftoff in prior missions it held control throughout the entire mission. Though the first Apollo flights and all Project Mercury and Project Gemini flights took off from the then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the launches were managed by KSC and its previous organization, the Launch Operations Directorate. The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources and operate facilities on each other's property. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Since December 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight. Kennedy Space Center ( KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Orion made history as the fastest human-rated spacecraft to return from the Moon, hitting the atmosphere at speeds of around 24,600 miles per hour (39,590 kilometers per hour).The John F. The first Orion spacecraft flew to the Moon in November 2022, surviving a historic 1.4 million mile journey to the Moon and back for the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission. Artemis 4 still has a long way ahead of it as the mission is currently scheduled for liftoff in 2028, carrying a crew of astronauts to the lunar surface. ![]() The crew module for the Artemis 4 mission is still in the early stages of its assembly process, having only arrived at the spaceport in February. The Artemis 3 crew module was recently removed from the clean room inside the high bay in order to to undergo a series of pressure and leak tests, NASA wrote. Orion’s heat shield will experience scorching temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 Celsius), or about half as hot at the Sun, during its return, according to NASA.Īrtemis 3 is tentatively scheduled in for launch in 2025, the first mission of NASA’s lunar program designed to land astronauts on the Moon. NASA technicians recently installed the heat shield on the Artemis 2 Orion capsule, which is designed to protect the crew and the spacecraft during its reentry through Earth’s atmosphere. The Artemis 2 spacecraft is designed to carry astronauts on a journey to the Moon and back in late 2024.
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