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. "Since the early days of rocket launches and payload processing, decades of infrastructure and capital investment has been made, transforming Florida into a global center for the aerospace economy," said Frank DiBello, Space Florida president and CEO.Īmazon says it hopes to launch prototypes of the satellites in the coming months, and begin offering service next year.Ĭape-based neighbor SpaceX is also building its own network of internet satellites, called Starlink, launching in part from the Space Coast.Ĭopyright 2023 WMFE. Space Florida, the state agency that develops private space partnerships, manages the landing facility and helped secure the deal, until now called "Project Comet," which matched investment to boost infrastructure development at the spaceport. It's located at Space Florida's Launch and Landing Facility, which welcomed back returning Space Shuttle missions until the program's retirement in 2011. The facility includes a 100-foot tall high bay clean room to make room for packing the satellites in the nosecone of commercial rockets. “We are proud to continue our investment in Florida and to join the historic Space Coast community as we invest in people and facilities to support Project Kuiper, Amazon's satellite broadband network,” said Brian Huseman, vice president of public policy and community engagement at Amazon. The $120 million investment by Amazon includes the construction of a 100,000 square foot processing facility, with the promise of around 50 new jobs. After manufacturing the satellites in Kirkland, Washington, the Space Coast facility will receive those satellites and prep them for launch, initially on heavy-lift rockets like Blue Origin's New Glenn and ULA's Vulcan Centaur. The new facility at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center is critical to that plan, responsible for making final preparations for the satellites before launching into orbit. Project Kuiper aims to place 3,200 satellites into orbit, blanketing the globe with broadband internet. The new facility will support the company's space-based internet satellites for launch. Amazon is investing $120 million to build a satellite processing facility at the Kennedy Space Center.
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