Launch Complex 18 (LC-18) is a launch complex at the

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the station ...

, Florida that was active during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was used by

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

Vanguard The vanguard (also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force. History The vanguard derives fr ...

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...

and

Scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement *Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement **Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom **Scouts BSA, sectio ...

rockets. The complex consists of two launch pads, LC-18A, which was originally built by the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

for the

rocket, and LC-18B, which was originally by the

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

used for tests of the

PGM-17 Thor The PGM-17A Thor was the first operational ballistic missile of the United States Air Force (USAF). Named after the Norse god of thunder, it was deployed in the United Kingdom between 1959 and September 1963 as an intermediate-range ballistic m ...

missile. The first launch from LC-18 was a Viking rocket from LC-18A on 8 December 1956, on a test flight for

Project Vanguard Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Navy Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into low Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket. as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral ...

. A further Viking launch was conducted in May 1957, and the Vanguard made its maiden flight from the complex in September. Following this, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

first satellite launch attempt was made from LC-18A, using

Vanguard TV3 Vanguard TV-3 (also called Vanguard Test Vehicle-Three), was the first attempt of the United States to launch a satellite into orbit around the Earth, after the successful Soviet launches of Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2. Vanguard TV-3 was a small s ...

, on 6 December 1957. The launch failed after the rocket lost thrust and exploded on the launch pad. All twelve Vanguard launches were conducted from LC-18A, with the complex being transferred to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

after it took over responsibility for Vanguard following its formation in 1958. After the Vanguard's retirement in 1959, LC-18A was transferred to the US Air Force for use by Scout rockets. LC-18B was used for 17 tests of Thor missiles between 4 June 1958 and 29 February 1960. Following this, it was also converted for use by Scout rockets. Sixteen Scouts were launched from LC-18; ten from LC-18A and six from LC-18B. Fifteen of the launches were suborbital sounding flights, and one was an

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

al launch with the

Mercury-Scout 1 Mercury-Scout 1, or MS-1, was a United States spacecraft intended to test tracking stations for Project Mercury flights. It grew out of a May 5, 1961 NASA proposal to use Scout rockets to launch small satellites to evaluate the worldwide Mercury ...

satellite for NASA. This failed to reach orbit and was destroyed by

range safety In the field of rocketry, range safety may be assured by a system which is intended to protect people and assets on both the rocket range and downrange in cases when a launch vehicle might endanger them. For a rocket deemed to be ''off course'' ...

43 seconds after launch. The launches from LC-18A used the

Blue Scout Junior Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical sp ...

configuration, and were conducted between 21 September 1960 and 9 June 1965. The launches from LC-18B consisted of three Blue Scout I rockets and three Blue Scout IIs, launched between 7 January 1961 and 12 April 1967.

References

* * * {{Scout rockets Cape Canaveral Space Force Station