1950, CAPE CANAVERAL STATION BEGINS OPERATIONS

First Launch from Cape Canaveral

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of her closer friend Joseph de Ca'th Lon who is a fan of History, Science and Astronomy.

They have been talking about Cape Canaveral, the American Air Force Station that began operations on a day like today in 1950.

Before the arrival of Joseph de Ca'th Lon, The Grandma has studied her interesting course of Ms. Excel.

Chapter 7. Cell Format (I) (Spanish Version)

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), known as Cape Kennedy Air Force Station from 1963 to 1973, is an installation of the United States Air Force Space Command's 45th Space Wing.

CCAFS is headquartered at the nearby Patrick Air Force Base, and located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida, CCAFS. The station is the primary launch head of America's Eastern Range with three launch pads currently active, Space Launch Complexes 37B, 40, and 41.

Popularly known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, and as Cape Canaveral from 1949 to 1963 and from 1973 to the present, the facility is south-southeast of NASA's Kennedy Space Center on adjacent Merritt Island, with the two linked by bridges and causeways. The Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip provides 3,000 m runway close to the launch complexes for military airlift aircraft delivering heavy and outsized payloads to the Cape.

More information: Kennedy Space Center

A number of American space exploration pioneers were launched from CCAFS, including the first U.S. Earth satellite in 1958, first U.S. astronaut (1961), first U.S. astronaut in orbit (1962), first two-man U.S. spacecraft (1965), first U.S. unmanned lunar landing (1966), and first three-man U.S. spacecraft (1968). It was also the launch site for all of the first spacecraft to, separately, fly past each of the planets in the Solar System (1962–1977), the first spacecraft to orbit Mars (1971) and roam its surface (1996), the first American spacecraft to orbit and land on Venus (1978), the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn (2004), and to orbit Mercury (2011), and the first spacecraft to leave the Solar System (1977). Portions of the base have been designated a National Historic Landmark for their association with the early years of the American space program.

The CCAFS area had been used by the United States government to test missiles since 1949, when President Harry S. Truman established the Joint Long Range Proving Ground at Cape Canaveral.

The location was among the best in the continental United States for this purpose, as it allowed for launches out over the Atlantic Ocean, and is closer to the equator than most other parts of the United States, allowing rockets to get a boost from the Earth's rotation. 

Cape Canaveral, 1959

On June 1, 1948, the United States Navy transferred the former Banana River Naval Air Station to the United States Air Force, with the Air Force renaming the facility the Joint Long Range Proving Ground (JLRPG) Base on June 10, 1949.

On October 1, 1949, the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base was transferred from the Air Materiel Command to the Air Force Division of the Joint Long Range Proving Ground.

On May 17, 1950, the base was renamed the Long Range Proving Ground Base but three months later was renamed Patrick Air Force Base, in honor of Army Maj. Gen. Mason Patrick. In 1951, the Air Force established the Air Force Missile Test Center.

Early American sub-orbital rocket flights were achieved at Cape Canaveral in 1956. These flights occurred shortly after sub-orbital flights launched from White Sands Missile Range, such as the Viking 12 sounding rocket on February 4, 1955. Following the Soviet Union's successful Sputnik 1, launched on October 4, 1957, the United States attempted its first launch of an artificial satellite from Cape Canaveral on December 6, 1957. However, the rocket carrying Vanguard TV3 exploded on the launch pad.

NASA was founded in 1958, and Air Force crews launched missiles for NASA from the Cape, known then as Cape Canaveral Missile Annex. Redstone, Jupiter, Pershing 1, Pershing 1a, Pershing II, Polaris, Thor, Atlas, Titan and Minuteman missiles were all tested from the site, the Thor becoming the basis for the expendable launch vehicle (ELV) Delta rocket, which launched Telstar 1 in July 1962. The row of Titan (LC-15, 16, 19, 20) and Atlas (LC-11, 12, 13, 14) launch pads along the coast came to be known as Missile Row in the 1960s.

More information: City of Cape Canaveral

Of the launch complexes built since 1950, several have been leased and modified for use by private aerospace companies. Launch Complex SLC-17 was used for the Delta II Heavy variant, through 2011. Launch Complexes SLC-37 and SLC-41 were modified to launch EELV Delta IV and Atlas V launch vehicles, respectively. These launch vehicles replaced all earlier Delta, Atlas, and Titan rockets. Launch Complex SLC-47 is used to launch weather sounding rockets. Launch Complex SLC-46 is reserved for use by Space Florida.

Launch Complex SLC-40 hosted the first launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 in June 2010. Falcon 9 launches continued from this complex through 2015, consisting of unmanned Commercial Resupply Services missions for NASA to the International Space Station as well as commercial satellite flights.

SpaceX has also leased Launch Complex 39A from NASA and has completed modifying it to accommodate Falcon Heavy and Commercial Crew manned spaceflights to the ISS with their Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2018 or 2019. SpaceX Landing Zone 1 and 2, used to land first stages of the Falcon 9 and the side boosters of the Falcon Heavy, are located at the site of the former LC-13.

On September 16, 2015, NASA announced that Blue Origin has leased Launch Complex 36 and will modify it as a launch site for their next-generation launch vehicles.

In the case of low-inclination, geostationary, launches the location of the area at 28°27'N put it at a slight disadvantage against other launch facilities situated nearer the equator. The boost eastward from the Earth's rotation is about 406 m/s at Cape Canaveral, but 463 m/s at the European Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana.

In the case of high-inclination polar launches, the latitude does not matter, but the Cape Canaveral area is not suitable, because inhabited areas underlie these trajectories; Vandenberg Air Force Base, Cape Canaveral's West coast counterpart, or the smaller Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska are used instead.

The Air Force Space and Missile Museum is located at LC-26. Hangar AE, located in the CCAFS Industrial Area, collects telemetry from launches all over the United States.

NASA's Launch Services Program has three Launch Vehicle Data Centers (LVDC) within that display telemetry real-time for engineers.

More information: NASA

We choose to go to the moon.

John F. Kennedy