Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41), previously Launch Complex 41 (LC-41), is an active

launch site A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word ''spaceport'', and even more so ''cosmodrome'', has traditionally been used for sites capable ...

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 statio ...

. As of 2020, the site is used by

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, ...

(ULA) for

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Mart ...

launches. Previously, it had been used by the

USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, 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 ...

for

Titan III Titan was a family of United States expendable rockets used between 1959 and 2005. The Titan I and Titan II were part of the US Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet until 1987. The space launch vehicle versions contribut ...

and

Titan IV Titan IV was a family of heavy-lift space launch vehicles developed by Martin Marietta and operated by the United States Air Force from 1989 to 2005. Launches were conducted from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Vandenberg Air Forc ...

launches.

Atlas V

After the last Titan launch, the complex was renovated to support the

. SLC-41 was the site of the first-ever Atlas V launch on 21 August 2002, lifting Hot Bird 6, a Eutelsat geostationary communications spacecraft built around a

Spacebus Spacebus is a satellite bus produced at the Cannes Mandelieu Space Center in France by Thales Alenia Space. Spacebuses are typically used for geostationary communications satellites, and seventy-four have been launched since development started ...

3000B3 bus. Atlas V rockets are assembled vertically on a

mobile launcher platform A mobile launcher platform (MLP), also known as mobile launch platform, is a structure used to support a large multistage space vehicle which is assembled (stacked) vertically in an integration facility (e.g. the Vehicle Assembly Building) and t ...

in the

Vertical Integration Facility The Vertical Integration Building was a building at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, located at the far south end of the industrial area supporting SLC-40 and SLC-41. The building was one of the facilities of the Integrate-Transfer- ...

, located to the south of the pad. The MLP is transported to the launch pad on rails about a day before launch.

Modifications for supporting human spaceflight

KSC-20170818-PH AWG01 0009 (36482856482)

In September 2015, pad modifications began to support human spaceflight with the

Boeing CST-100 Starliner The Boeing CST-100 Starliner
is a class of two partially

. Modifications include the addition of a launch service tower to provide access to the capsule for "pre-launch processing, crew access, and safety egress systems should the need to evacuate Starliner on the pad occur".

History

Notable payloads

In addition to satellites, Titan vehicles launched several probes from LC-41 in the 1970s, including the Helios probes to study the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, the

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 ...

probes to Mars, and the Voyager planetary flyby and deep-space probes. More recent probes have also been launched from LC-41 using the Atlas V: the ''

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to study the geology and climate of Mars, provide reconnaissance of future landing sites, and relay data from surface missions back to Earth. It was launched on August 12, 2005, an ...

'' in August 2005, the '' New Horizons'' spacecraft to

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...

in January 2006, the ''Juno'' mission to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

in August 2011, and the

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

rover missions;

Mars Science Laboratory Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission to Mars launched by NASA on November 26, 2011, which successfully landed ''Curiosity'', a Mars rover, in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. The overall objectives include investigati ...

in November 2011, and

Mars 2020 Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission forming part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program that includes the rover '' Perseverance'', the small robotic, coaxial helicopter '' Ingenuity'', and associated delivery vehicles. Mars 2020 was launched from ...

in July 2020.

Titan III

The Titan III launch facilities at CCAFS were built as part of an Integrate-Transfer-Launch approach intended to enable a rapid launch rate. Titan vehicles were assembled and integrated with their payloads on mobile platforms in separate buildings, then moved by rail to one of two launch pads. The Titan III facilities included LC-40, LC-41, assembly buildings including the Vertical Integration Building, and the first rail line at the Cape. The facilities were completed in 1964, and the first launch from LC-41 was of a

Titan IIIC The Titan IIIC was an expendable launch system used by the United States Air Force from 1965 until 1982. It was the first Titan booster to feature large solid rocket motors and was planned to be used as a launcher for the Dyna-Soar, though the ...

carrying four separate payloads on 21 December 1965. The Titan III aligned facility was decommissioned in late 1977.

Titan IV

In 1986 the old mobile service tower was demolished. Another was built for the

rocket. LC-41 launched the first flight of the Titan IV. The last Titan launch from LC-41 was on 9 April 1999, when a Titan IVB launched the USA 142

early warning satellite An early warning satellite is a satellite designed to rapidly detect ballistic missile launches and thus enable defensive military action. To do this, these satellites use infrared detectors that identify the missile thanks to the heat given off ...

. The IUS upper stage failed to separate, leaving the payload stranded in a useless GTO orbit.

Launch history

Rocket configuration

References

External links

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
{{Merritt Island Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Launch complexes of the United States Space Force 1965 establishments in Florida