![]() The first test of the powerful Saturn V without a crew on board was Apollo 4 on Nov. In the spring of 1967, the flight originally scheduled for Grissom, White and Chaffee was officially designated Apollo 1 for the history books. The exhaustive investigation of the fire and extensive reworking of the Apollo command module postponed launches of astronauts until NASA officials cleared the module for flight. 27, 1967, the three astronauts set to fly the first Apollo mission the following month - Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee-lost their lives in a flash fire that swept through their command module during a launch pad test at Complex 34. A crawler-transporter was built to carry the towering moonbound rockets along the gravel path. Launch pads A and B were constructed, with a crawlerway to serve as the highway between the VAB and the pads. The gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building began to take shape in 1962 and was completed in 1965. While Mercury and Gemini launches lifted off from pads on Cape Canaveral, NASA was building its own moon launch facility, Launch Complex 39, to support the mighty Saturn V rocket. 29, 1963, just five days after the assassination of the president who set the moon as NASA’s goal, the center was renamed the John F. The Gemini missions established their own astounding set of firsts, introducing pioneering spacewalks and spacecraft dockings-revolutionary new feats as astronauts were quickly learning to live and work, and even troubleshoot, in space.ĭuring this time, the infrastructure of the Launch Operations Center took shape as preparations for the lunar missions continued, but the name of the center changed after a tragic turn of events. The first crew flew aboard Gemini 3 on March 23, 1965, lifting off on a Titan rocket from Launch Complex 19. Following closely behind were Project Gemini’s 10 missions, with crews of two, aboard Atlas and Titan launch vehicles. ![]() Throughout the course of two years, Project Mercury had six successful launches of solo astronauts aboard Redstone and Atlas rockets. On July 1, 1962, the launch facility was given full center status as the Launch Operations Center with Debus as its first director. Debus, was an arm of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. ![]() During these early days, the Launch Operations Directorate in Florida, under the leadership of Dr.
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