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| Cape Canaveral Credit: © Mark Wade. 24,155 bytes. 606 x 965 pixels. |
| astronautix.com | Cape Canaveral |
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| Cape Canaveral Credit: © Mark Wade. 24,155 bytes. 606 x 965 pixels. |
America's largest launch center, used for all manned launches. Located at Cape Canaveral are the Kennedy Space Center, used by NASA for Saturn V and Space Shuttle launches; Cape Canaveral itself, operated the the US Department of Defence and handling most other launches; the commercial Spaceport Florida; and the air-launched launch vehicle Drop Zone off Mayport, Florida, located at 29.00 N 79.00 W..
Recognizing that rocket test ranges will exceed White Sands capability, Cape Canaveral selected for future long range flights. President Truman signed a bill providing a 5,000-mile guided-missile test range, which was subsequently established at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Negotiations with British government begin for installation of string of tracking stations in Bahamas Islands.
Long-Range Proving Ground at Cape Canaveral was activated.
Department of Defense assigned range responsibilities to the armed services: Army: White Sands, N. Mex., Proving Ground and nearby Holloman Air Force Base at Alamogordo; Navy: Point Mugu, Calif.: Air Force: Long-Range Proving Groud at Banana River, Fla. (now called Cape Canaveral).
Pad abort on 19 July of Bumper No. 8, a German V-2 with a 320 kg Army-JPL Wac Corporal. Launch scrubbed first due to emergency landing of aircraft in the range; second attempt, no lift, main chamber did not ignite.
Bumper No. 7 was the second missile launch from Cape Canaveral. This was to be a maximum range test of a two-stage vehicle, to study the problems in staging. The launch was delayed because of moisture in the vehicle. But when finally launched, the WAC achieved the highest sustained speed in the atmosphere to that date (Mach 9/2500 m/s) and 35.2 km altitude before impacting 305 km downrange.
Patrick Air Force Base, administrative headquarters of the AFMTC at Cape Canaveral, offiically named after Gen. Mason M. Patrick.
The first Lark missile launched by Air Force from Cape Canaveral, the last of the three missiles launched in 1950 at the LRPG.
Project Orbiter Conference was held at Redstone Arsenal and at Cape Canaveral.
USAF Northrop Snark launched from Cape Canaveral on 2,000-mile flight.
USAF X-17 flight test program started at Cape Canaveral to study reentry problems by simulating reentry velocities and conditions with three-stage solid-fuel Lockheed X-17. A total of 26 X-17 flights were conducted until March 1957.
Full-scale test version of the Snark guided missile (XSM62) successfully recovered for the first time after a flight from Cape Canaveral.
Thor missile launched at Cape Canaveral, the second tested, achieved its designed 1,500-mile range.
Snark intercontinental missile launched from Cape Canaveral first flew 5,000 miles, to a target near Ascension Island.
First launch of Navy Polaris test vehicle at Cape Canaveral.
Thor IRBM successfully fired from Cape Canaveral, flew prescribed course, and impacted in preselected area.
USAF Thor-Able missile was launched from Cape Canaveral in a reentry test; flew short of its goal and the nose cone was not recovered. The nose cone carried a mouse as a biomedical experiment.
First launching of USAF Bomarc interceptor missile from Cape Canaveral on a signal sent by the SAGE Control Center at Kingston, N.Y.
PIONEER I, U.S.-IGY space probe under direction of NASA and with the AFBMD as executive agent, launched from AMR, Cape Canaveral, Fla., by a Thor-Able-I booster. It raveled 70,700 miles before returning to earth, determined radial extent of great radiation belt, first observations of earth's and interplanetary magnetic field, and first measurements of micrometeorite density in interplanetary space.
Fourth recovery of a data capsule at AMR, USAF Thor 1,500-mile accuracy test flight.
First test launch of Army's Pershing tactical missile from Cape Canaveral.
COURIER I-B active communications satellite successfully placed into orbit by Thor-Able-Star launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral. After completing one orbit it received and recorded a transcribed message to the United Nations by President Eisenhower transmitted from Fort Monmouth, N.J., and retransmitted it to another earth station in Puerto Rico. This marked the 100th launch of the Douglas Thor, military and scientific combined, and a Thor record of 60 percent of the U.S. satellites boosted into orbit.
Palaemon, a 180-foot barge built to transport the Saturn launch vehicle from MSFC to Cape Canaveral by water, was formally accepted by MSFC Director from Maj. Gen. Frank S. Besson, Chief of Army Transportation.
The fourth firing of an advanced Polaris A-2, and the first from a ship, was made by the U.S.S. Observation Island as she cruised at 8 knots, 10 miles offshore from Cape Canaveral.
Cape Canaveral opened to the general public for the first time in its history.
Collapse of a lock in the Wheeler Dam below Huntsville on the Tennessee River interdicted the planned water route of the first Saturn space booster from Marshall Space Flight Center to Cape Canaveral on the barge Palaemon.
Huge Saturn launch complex at Cape Canaveral dedicated in brief ceremony by NASA, construction of which was supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. Giant gantry, weighing 2,800 tons and being 310 feet high, is largest movable land structure in North America.
A Navy YFNB barge was obtained by NASA to serve as a replacement for the Palaemon in transporting of the Saturn booster to Cape Canaveral.
At Cape Canaveral with the President's Missile Sites Labor Commission, Secretary of Labor Goldberg made public President Kennedy's message praising the voluntary, no-strike, no-lockout pledges covering labor-management relations at missile and space sites. The President's message stated that "the Nation cannot afford the luxury of avoidable delay in our missile and space program. Neither can we tolerate wasteful and expensive practices which add to the great financial burden our defense effort already places on us."
Navy barge Compromise, carrying first Saturn booster, stuck in the mud in the Indian River just south of Cape Canaveral. Released several hours later, the Saturn was delayed only 24 hours in its 2,200-mile journey from Huntsville.
After considering Cape Canaveral, Cape Canaveral-Merritt Island, Mayaguana-Bahamas, Cumberland-Georgia, Brownville-Texas, Christmas Island, Hawaii, and White Sands, Merritt Island selected as launch site for manned lunar flights and other missions requiring Saturn and Nova class vehicles. Based upon national space goals announced by the President in May, NASA plans called for acquisition of 80,000 acres north and west of AFMTC, to be administered by the USAF as agent for NASA and as a part of the Atlantic Missile Range.
Authorization for NASA to acquire necessary land for additional launch facilities at Cape Canaveral was approved by the Senate.
Army fired its Pershing solid-fuel tactical missile from Cape Canaveral on a 200-mile flight, testing accuracy, warhead components, and blast and heat factors at launch in relation to operational crew protection. This was the seventh straight successful firing of the Pershing.
Two Roksonde meteorological sounding rockets were successfully fired from Cape Canaveral, telemetered measurements of winds and temperatures at altitudes above 180,000 feet. Produced by Marquardt for the Army, Roksondes had already completed a series of tests at White Sands Missile Range and Pacific Missile Range.
The first manned flight of the Apollo CSM, the Apollo C category mission, was planned for the last quarter of 1966. Numerous problems with the Apollo Block I spacecraft resulted in a flight delay to February 1967. The crew of Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee, was killed in a fire while testing their capsule on the pad on 27 January 1967, still weeks away from launch. The designation AS-204 was used by NASA for the flight at the time; the designation Apollo 1 was applied retroactively at the request of Grissom's widow.
Enterprise (OV-101), ET, SRBs transported on mobile launcher platform from Launch Complex 39-A to Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC