The John F. Kennedy Space Center, located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight. Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources and operate facilities on each other's property.
The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory. That agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist and one of the founding members of NACA. At last estimate NASA Ames has over US$3 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget.
The Canadian Space Agency is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the Canadian Space Agency Act.
Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin.
Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's two launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, were first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle, which still holds the title as the most powerful rocket ever flown. Typically used to launch NASA's crewed spaceflight missions since the late 1960s, the pad was leased by SpaceX and has been modified to support their launch vehicles.
A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket-propelled vehicle used to carry a payload from Earth's surface to space, usually to Earth orbit or beyond. A launch system includes the launch vehicle, launch pad, vehicle assembly and fuelling systems, range safety, and other related infrastructure.
Launch Complex 39 (LC-39) is a rocket launch site at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site and its collection of facilities were originally built as the Apollo program's "Moonport" and later modified for the Space Shuttle program.
Commercial use of space is the provision of goods or services of commercial value by using equipment sent into Earth orbit or outer space. This phenomenon – aka Space Economy – is accelerating cross-sector innovation processes combining the most advanced space and digital technologies to develop a broad portfolio of space-based services. The use of space technologies and of the data they collect, combined with the most advanced enabling digital technologies is generating a multitude of business opportunities that include the development of new products and services all the way to the creation of new business models, and the reconfiguration of value networks and relationships between companies. If well leveraged such technology and business opportunities can contribute to the creation of tangible and intangible value, through new forms and sources of revenue, operating efficiency and the start of new projects leading to multidimensional positive impact. Examples of the commercial use of space include satellite navigation, satellite television and commercial satellite imagery. Operators of such services typically contract the manufacturing of satellites and their launch to private or public companies, which form an integral part of the space economy. Some commercial ventures have long-term plans to exploit natural resources originating outside Earth, for example asteroid mining. Space tourism, currently an exceptional activity, could also be an area of future growth, as new businesses strive to reduce the costs and risks of human spaceflight.
Launch Complex 36 (LC-36)—formerly known as Space Launch Complex 36 (SLC-36) from 1997 to 2010—is a launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Brevard County, Florida. It was used for Atlas launches by NASA and the U.S. Air Force from 1962 until 2005.
The KSC Headquarters Building is an eight-story office building that houses the administrative offices of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Constructed in April 2019, and also known as the Central Campus Facility, it incorporates the offices of the space center director, management staff, personnel, procurement and several hundred contractor and support workers. The building also houses the KSC Library, travel office, film and photo archives, photo processing shops, the Engineering Document Center, print shop, mail room, credit union and KSC security offices. The new eight story building houses 200,000 sq of floor space, filled with modern offices and its other facilities integrated into one roof, and has air conditioning and energy-efficient adjustable LED lighting installed throughout.
The Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building (O&C) is a historic building on Merritt Island, Florida, United States. The five-story structure is in the Industrial Area of NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Its has twin-block facilities that include the crew quarter dormitories for astronauts, suit-up preparations prior to their flights, and the other is a large spacecraft workshop used for manufacturing and checking activities on crewed spacecraft. On January 21, 2000, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
The Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) is a three-story industrial building at Kennedy Space Center for the manufacture and processing of flight hardware, modules, structural components and solar arrays of the International Space Station, and future space stations and commercial spacecraft. It was built in 1992 at the space complex's industrial area, just east of the Operations and Checkout Building.
Space Florida is the aerospace economic development agency of the State of Florida. The agency was created by consolidating three existing state space entities into a single new organization via the Space Florida Act, enacted in May 2006 by the Florida Legislature. The predecessor entities were the Florida Space Authority, Florida Space Research Institute and Florida Aerospace Finance Corporation.
The Merritt Island Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network station, known in NASA parlance as MILA, was a radio communications and spacecraft tracking complex located on 61 acres (0.25 km2) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The name MILA was an acronym for the "Merritt Island Launch Annex" to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which was how the site was referred to when spacecraft launches were primarily originating from the adjacent military installation. MILA's arrays of antennas provided various communications and data services between spacecraft and NASA centers, as well as tracked and ranged moving spacecraft. In its final years, it served as the primary voice and data link during the first 7½ minutes of Space Shuttle launches, and the final 13 minutes of shuttle landings at KSC. Though it occupied land at KSC, MILA was operated and managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center.
Launch Services Program (LSP) is responsible for NASA oversight of launch operations and countdown management, providing added quality and mission assurance in lieu of the requirement for the launch service provider to obtain a commercial launch license. It operates under the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate of NASA.
As of 2020, SpaceX operates four launch facilities: Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), Vandenberg Space Force Base Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E), Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), and Brownsville South Texas Launch Site. Space Launch Complex 40 was damaged in the Amos-6 accident in September 2016 and repair work was completed by December 2017. SpaceX believes that they can optimize their launch operations, and reduce launch costs, by dividing their launch missions amongst these four launch facilities: LC-39A for NASA launches, SLC-40 for United States Space Force national security launches, SLC-4E for polar launches, and South Texas Launch Site for commercial launches.
Firefly Aerospace is an American private aerospace firm based in Austin, Texas, that develops launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit. The company completed its $75 million Series A investment round in May 2021, which was led by DADA Holdings. The current company was formed when the assets of the former company Firefly Space Systems were acquired by EOS Launcher in March 2017, which was then renamed Firefly Aerospace.
The private aerospace company Blue Origin has a number of development, manufacturing, and test facilities in four US states: Washington, Texas, Florida, and Alabama.
The Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program is one of three NASA programs based at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. EGS was established to develop and operate the systems and facilities necessary to process and launch rockets and spacecraft during assembly, transport and launch. EGS is preparing the infrastructure to support NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its payloads, such as the Orion spacecraft for Artemis 1. Artemis 1 is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration to the Moon and Mars.
The project to create the International Space Station required the utilization and/or construction of new and existing manufacturing facilities around the world, mostly in the United States and Europe. The agencies overseeing the manufacturing involved NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, JAXA, and the Canadian Space Agency. Hundreds of contractors working for the five space agencies were assigned the task of fabricating the modules, trusses, experiments and other hardware elements for the station.
