Cape Canaveral: Historic Launch Pad for Exploration Beyond Earth

July 6, 2022

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 14, the Mercury spacecraft NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper flew on his 22-orbit mission sits atop an Atlas rocket. The mission launched May 15, 1963. — At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 14, a Mercury spacecraft *sits atop an Atlas rocket.* ready to send NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper on a 22-orbit mission on May 15, 1963. Photo credit: NASA

America’s Spaceport – Part 1

By Bob Granath

Marianna Triplett was working at the Pentagon, continuing the effort to transfer millions of men and women back to civilian life after they served in the military during World War II. One day during 1948, a U.S. Army general called her into his office and said he wanted to transfer her to Florida to assist with a “hush-hush secret program.” The new effort would lead to some of the most historic achievements of the decades to come.

In 1948, U.S. Women's Army Corps Master Sgt. Marianna Triplett was assigned to support the Banana River Project. It would lead to establishing Cape Canaveral, site of some of the most historic achievements for decades to come. — *In 1948, U.S. Women’s Army Corps Master Sgt. Marianna Triplett was assigned to support the Banana River Project. Photo credit: U.S. Army*

“They wanted me to go to work on the Banana River Project,” said Triplett, then a 36-year-old master sergeant in the U.S. Women’s Army Corps. “The general explained that a group of German scientists and engineers were doing research with rockets in the New Mexico desert, but soon would be moved to Alabama. As they developed bigger rockets, they would be launching them from a place called, ‘Cape Canaveral.’”

A statue of Juan Ponce de León stands at a park named for the Spanish explorer at Melbourne Beach, Florida. Many historians believe he first came ashore at this site, about 40 miles south of Cape Canaveral. — *A statue of Juan Ponce de León stands at a park named for the Spanish explorer at Melbourne Beach, Florida. Photo credit: SpaceAgeChronicle.com/Bob Granath*

The Cape was a little-known point of land on the East Coast of Florida populated mainly by alligators and mosquitoes. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León landed in what he called “La Florida.” While some believe he arrived in what now is St. Augustine, many historians say that he first came ashore at Melbourne Beach. He is credited with naming Cape Canaveral, Cabo Cañaveral in Spanish, meaning cape of canes or reeds.

*The Cape Canaveral lighthouse and the keeper’s home as it appeared around 1900. The 1847 original was replaced in 1894. Photo credit: Florida State Archives*

The U.S. government built a lighthouse on the eastern tip of the Cape in 1847. The brick structure was dismantled during the Civil War, and replaced with one made of steel and was competed in 1868. That lighthouse was relocated about a mile inland in 1894 due to the potential for erosion.

During the World War II, the Banana River Naval Air Station was established south of the Cape. From that base, aircraft surveyed the East Coast of the United States looking for German U-Boat activity. Several cargo ships had been sunk by enemy submarines while attempting to deliver supplies to Great Britain. At war’s end, the naval air station was closed.

Development of Rockets

Toward the end of the war, Dr. Wernher von Braun and 115 other German rocket specialists wanted to take their skills to U.S. Army forces once the Americans advanced close enough to safely do so. They had been working on the world’s first ballistic missile – what they called the A-4 for Aggregate-4. In addition to being developed as a weapon, it was the first human-made object to reach 60 miles high, the threshold of outer space. The Nazi propaganda ministry renamed the rocket V-2 for “Vengeance Weapon-2.”

U.S. Navy PBM-3C Mariner aircraft at the Banana River Naval Air Station on Jan. 13, 1943. Photo credit: U.S. Navy

Knowing they had expertise that would have a major impact on the second half of the 20th Century, von Braun explained his team’s reasoning for seeking out forces from the United States.

“Our decision was not one of expediency, but a moral decision,” he said. “We had created a new means of warfare and we wanted to surrender such a weapon to a nation whose people were guided by the Bible.”

The rocket team came to America with 100 of their rockets and conducted upper atmospheric research and experiments while based at Fort Bliss, Texas and launching the V-2s from the White Sands Missile Range just over the state line in New Mexico.

Lifting off July 24, 1950, the fist rocket launched from Cape Canaveral was Bumper 8. It was a V-2 with a U.S. Army WAC Corporal as the second stage designed to study the performance of two-stage rockets. — Lifting off July 24, 1950, the first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral was Bumper 8. It was a V-2 with a U.S. Army WAC Corporal as the second stage designed to study the performance of two-stage rockets. Photo credit: Army Ballistic Missile Agency

As the Cold War with the Soviet Union began to heat up, the U.S. military needed larger missiles, traveling faster and farther. A launch site on the coast was needed to allow rockets to travel over the unpopulated waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1949, President Harry Truman formally established the Joint Long Range Proving Ground at Cape Canaveral. Just to the south, the Banana River Naval Air Station was transferred from the Navy to the U.S. Air Force and reopened as Patrick Air Force Base, headquarters for the new launch site. The base was named for Gen. Mason Patrick, the first chief of the Army Air Corps.

Covering 15,000 acres, Cape Canaveral was an ideal site. Being remote, it was isolated from heavily populated areas. It was accessible by road, rail and shipping. Being in Florida, the weather was favorable most of the year.

In 1949, the Banana River Naval Air Station became Patrick Air Force Base, headquarters for the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Center. During the 1960s, a display of full-size replicas of rockets stood in front of the base Technical Laboratory. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

Plans called for the rocket team to be moved in 1950 from Ft. Bliss to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama as part of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) under the command of Maj. Gen. Holger Toftoy. When rockets were to be launched, the group would operate from the Cape under Dr. Kurt Debus, the group’s Launch Operations director.

“We brought along everything we needed — the rocket, the motor, the guidance system,” he recalled years later. “They were hectic days, but they were good days. We were putting together knowledge that has made the impossible fairly commonplace today.”

The range also benefited by the fact that that there were many islands in the Caribbean where tracking stations could be established to follow the path of missile tests.

*The string of islands in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean was ideal for tracking stations along the 5,000-mile Atlantic Test Range. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force*

A winged Snark missile takes off from Cape Canaveral. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force

The first rocket launched from Cape Canaveral was Bumper 8. It was a V-2 with a U.S. Army WAC Corporal sounding rocket as the second stage. Lifting off on July 24, 1950, it was designed to study performance of two-stage rockets.

With Launch Pads 1, 2, 3 and 4 built along with the necessary infrastructure, Cape Canaveral Auxiliary Air Force Base began to grow rapidly. Air Force winged missiles were tested, along with ballistic missiles. In 1954, Cape Canaveral added the Skid Strip runway to recover winged missiles such as the Snark and Navaho.

In the years to come, thousands of technicians, engineers and other space experts flocked to what came to be known as Florida’s Space Coast. Hotels sprang up just south of the Cape in Cocoa Beach and new homes were built thought out Brevard County.

By the mid-1950s, Triplett retired from the Army and began working at Titusville High School. She spent much of her time recruiting educators to teach children of the families moving to the area.

Challenges of the Cold War

The first large American ballistic missile was the Redstone, a direct descendant of the V-2. A short-range rocket, the 20-ton Redstone was deployed by the U.S. Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 as part of NATO’s defense of Western Europe. A derivative of the rocket, the Jupiter-C, served as the launch vehicle for America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, lifting off from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Pad 26 on Jan. 31, 1958.

A Navaho that launched like a rocket, touches down on the Cape Canaveral Skid Strip completing a successful landing during 1958. — *A Navaho missile that launched like a rocket, touches down on the Cape Canaveral Skid Strip completing a successful landing during 1958. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force*

Many Americans were stunned when the Soviets launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, on Oct. 4, 1957. A month later, Sputnik 2 orbited with a dog as a passenger. Following the launch of Explorer 1, additional scientific satellites followed. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted to keep spaceflight for peaceful purposes separated from the military. In doing so, he responded by asking the U.S. Congress to create a civilian space agency — NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Seated at the rudimentary controls of the Launch Complex 26 blockhouse at the Cape Canaveral Missile Annex (now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station), technicians and engineers monitor the countdown of the Jupiter-C rocket that launched American’s first satellite, Explorer 1 on Jan. 31, 1958. Photo credit: NASA

NASA joined the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy in launching rockets from Cape Canaveral. Eventually, the ABMA rocket development team transferred to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, also in Huntsville, with von Braun as center director.

One of the new agency’s first tasks was to establish Project Mercury to put a person in space. The effort was designed to verify that humans could endure spaceflight and perform useful work there. Mercury test flights began with the uncrewed Big Joe mission to evaluate the spacecraft’s heatshield after being launched by an Air Force Atlas rocket.

Atlas was an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, developed by the United States. The first Atlas was launched on June 6, 1957. While the ICBM was retired from its military role by 1965, as a launch vehicle it launched first the first four Americas astronauts who went into orbit. In the years that followed, the Atlas launched numerous probes to the Moon and continues in service today.

Americans in Space

*A Thor Delta rocket launches Tiros 1, the first weather satellite, on April 1, 1960. Thor was derived from an U.S. Air Force intermediate-range ballistic missile. Photo credit: NASA*

In addition to launch pads, numerous hangars support ongoing operations, as is the case at most Air Force bases. However, instead of a facility for aircraft maintenance, the hangars are used for processing rockets and spacecraft. During Project Mercury, a centerpiece facility was Hangar S. From 1959 to 1963, the facility was used for astronaut training, crew quarters and spacecraft processing.

Using the Redstone launch vehicle, Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut to reach space, lifting off from the Cape’s Launch Complex 5 on May 5, 1961. After two suborbital missions, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, followed by three more Mercury astronauts, concluding in May 1963.

*A view looking north at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the early 1960s showing a string of Atlas and Titan launch pads frequently referred to as “ICBM Row.” Photo credit: NASA*

Three weeks after Shepard’s successful Mercury-3 mission, President John F. Kennedy went before a joint session of Congress and challenged the nation to “achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.”

The decision to go the Moon and the creation of Project Apollo soon accelerated operations for NASA’s organization at Cape Canaveral. What astronauts were learning to do in space also expanded. While the Cape was a facility operated by the U.S. Air Force, the civilian agency needed much more room to construct the massive complex needed for lunar missions. The effort to acquire 140,000 acres on Merritt Island began in September 1961.

On June 3, 1965 NASA astronauts Jim McDivitt, in front, and Ed White arrive at Launch Complex 19 for Gemini IV. In a span of 21 months, ten Gemini missions were flown paving the way for missions to send crews to the Moon. Photo credit: NASA

On July 1, 1962, NASA’s presence at Cape Canaveral was made permanent with plans to move to land being purchased on adjacent Merritt Island. The new site was designated NASA’s Launch Operations Center on the Merritt Island Launch Annex with Debus as director.

A next step in reaching the Moon was Project Gemini, a human spaceflight program to bridge the technology from the rudimentary Mercury missions to complex flights beyond Earth orbit.

From the Cape’s Launch Complex 19, ten crewed Gemini missions were sent to orbit between 1965 and 1966 atop a modified Titan ICBM. The missile, used between 1959 and 2005, followed the Atlas ICBM. The two-man Project Gemini missions proved NASA astronauts could change orbits, rendezvous and dock with another vehicle, work outside their spacecraft in what became know as a spacewalk and spend up to 14 days in space – the time need for a trip to land on the Moon and return.

Bigger Rockets, Bolder Missions

*In the early 1960s, NASA built Launch Complexes 34, foreground, and 37 to support the Saturn 1 rockets, the largest, most powerful rocket at the time. Photo credit: NASA*

There it goes! Technicians and engineers in the Launch Complex 37 blockhouse follow the liftoff of a Saturn 1 on May 25, 1965. Pointing on the left foreground is Dr. Kurt Debus, director of the Kennedy Space Center, next is Dr. Hans Gruene, director of Launch Vehicle Operations, Dr. Wernher von Braun, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, and Eberhard Rees, deputy director at Marshall. Photo credit: NASA

Beginning in the early 1960s, NASA began building Launch Complexes 34 and 37 to support the Saturn 1 rockets. With the liftoff of the first Saturn on Oct. 27, 1961, the United States surpassed the Soviet Union with the largest, most powerful rocket in the world at the time with 1.5 million pounds of thrust. It produced ten times more power than the Jupiter-C that sent the first American satellite into orbit in 1958. Launching with a Saturn 1B from Pad 34, Apollo 7 was the first crewed mission in the program designed to land humans on the Moon.

In 1964, the Air Force built Launch Complexes 40 and 41 at the north end of the Cape for its Titan IIIC and its successor, the Titan IV rocket. Both included a liquid fuel core stage with two strap-on solid rocket boosters. The Air Force used this launch vehicle for orbiting payloads for the Department of Defense. NASA also used the powerful Titans to launch communications and weather satellites. Between 1974 and 1977, the Titan IIIE launched Viking landers to Mars and Voyager probes to planets in the outer reaches of the solar system.

While a variety of satellites continued to be launched from Cape Canaveral to study Earth, Hangar AF played a key role in NASA’s Space Shuttle Program between 1981 and 2011. After the shuttle’s twin solid rocket boosters separated just over two minutes after liftoff, they parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean. Two ships retrieve the boosters and parachutes returning them to the hangar for refurbishment between missions.

Commercial Partners

*Launch Complex 40 configured for the Titan IV rocket, last flown in 2005. Photo credit: NASA*

Launch Complex 37 was deactivated as a Saturn pad in 1972. However, beginning in 2001, United Launch Alliance (ULA) modified the site to support the heavy-lift Delta IV and Delta IV Heavy rockets. The heavy version has a liquid propellant core stage with two nearly identical strap-on liquid propellant stages together developing 2.1 million pounds of thrust. In recent years, the Delta IV Heavy boosted the Parker Solar Probe on a seven-year mission for the first up-close study of the Sun.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on July 25, 2019, carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the company's 18th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station. — *An Atlas V rocket lifts off *from Launch Complex 41* on Jan. 19, 2006 sending the New Horizons probe to Pluto. Photo credit: NASA*

Another launch pad repurposed was Launch Complex 41 converted by ULA to support a different rocket. Once a Titan III and IV pad, it now sends payloads to space on the company’s Atlas V. Notable missions launched the New Horizons probe to Pluto, the Mars 2020 mission with its Perseverance rover and GOES weather satellites. Soon, ULA will transition Pad 41 to launch the company’s new Vulcan rocket.

The other Titan III and Titan IV pad was Launch Complex 40. After 2007, the Air Force leased the site to SpaceX. Since then, the company has launched Falcon 9 rockets with commercial payloads and Dragon spacecraft to deliver supplies to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services Program.

SpaceX added an innovation to make launching rockets more economical when a Falcon 9 first stage returned to Cape Canaveral on Dec. 22, 2015, landing vertically. Since then, the company’s first stages have routinely returned either to the Cape’s Landing Zone 1 concrete pad or to an autonomous barge offshore.

*The two side boosters return to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after the liftoff of the first Falcon Heavy on Feb. 6, 2018. Photo credit: NASA*

Another launch pad being given new life is Launch Complex 36. Formerly an Atlas Centaur pad, Blue Origin is converting the site to launch their New Glenn rocket. The company also is manufacturing the launch vehicle in a sprawling new facility just outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center.

With so much history taking place at what now is Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, several areas of the site are designated as a National Historic Landmarks. The Cape and the Kennedy Space Center are often referred to as America’s Spaceport reflecting partnerships between the civilian space agency, the Department of Defense and industry. But, while the achievements of the past are worth celebrating, America’s Spaceport remains focused on the future.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a four-part series recalling the history of America’s premier launch sites. Following this feature on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, check back on July 13, 2022 for an article examining how Cape Canaveral became Cape Kennedy and back to Cape Canaveral.