Kennedy Space Center Today

Today, the Kennedy Space Center is home to NASA’s Launch Services Program. The objectives of this pro­gram include sending robot space probes out across the solar system. These missions have included the Mars Exploration Rovers, the Huygens/ Cassini mission to Saturn, sending Deep Impact to Comet Tempel 1, and the launch of Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which studied the Sun. In addition, astronauts train at the space center in preparation for future missions.

Space Shuttle flights have been at the heart of the Kennedy Space Center’s activities since the first Shuttle, Columbia, was delivered to the spaceport in March 1979. The Kennedy Space Center is where each Space Shuttle mission begins. Technicians at the VAB
prepare each shuttle spacecraft for its next flight, bringing together compo­nents of the spacecraft and scientific apparatus from across the nation and from abroad. Space Shuttles are differ­ent in shape from rockets, so the north door of the huge assembly building had to be widened by 40 feet (12 meters) to allow the spacecraft, with its 78-foot (24-meter) wingspan, to pass through it. A huge crawler tractor transports the Space Shuttle to a launch pad. Two launch pads at LC-39, 39A and 39B, are used for Space Shuttle launches.

The Kennedy Space Center is the pre­ferred landing site for the Space Shuttle when it returns from space. It has one of the world’s largest airstrips, with a runway 15,000 feet (4,600 meters) long. Facilities at Kennedy include the Orbiter Processing Facility, where Space Shuttles are serviced after landing and their payloads removed.

The space center also has facilities that recycle the Space Shuttle’s solid – fuel rocket boosters and parachutes. The descent parachutes, which return spent boosters into the Atlantic Ocean after a Space Shuttle takeoff, are collected, washed, dried, and prepared for their next mission.

LC-39 is the only active launch cen­ter at the Space Center, but other launches take place from the neighbor­ing Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The John F. Kennedy Space Center is like a small city, with more than 10,000 employees. Cape Canaveral has become a popular visitor attraction, and every year many families tour the Space Center and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. As well as seeing spacecraft and launch facilities, visitors can enjoy IMAX space movies and interactive flight simulators that bring alive the space age.

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