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 American spaceflight, research, and technology. 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.
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously, without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts, cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers.
Human spaceflight programs have been conducted, started, or planned by multiple countries and companies. Until the 21st century, human spaceflight programs were sponsored exclusively by governments, through either the military or civilian space agencies. With the launch of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of human spaceflight programs – commercial human spaceflight – arrived. By the end of 2022, three countries and one private company (SpaceX) had successfully launched humans to Earth orbit, and two private companies had launched humans on a suborbital trajectory.
Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P., commonly referred to as Blue Origin is an American aerospace manufacturer, defense contractor, launch service provider and space technologies company headquartered in Kent, Washington, United States. The company makes rocket engines for United Launch Alliance (ULA)'s Vulcan rocket and manufactures their own rockets, spacecraft, satellites, and heavy-lift launch vehicles. The company is the second provider of lunar lander services for NASA's Artemis program and was awarded a $3.4 billion contract. The four rocket engines the company has in production are the BE-3U, BE-3PM, BE-4 and the BE-7.
Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, was first designed to accommodate the Saturn V launch vehicle. 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.
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.
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the visitor center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It features exhibits and displays, historic spacecraft and memorabilia, shows, two IMAX theaters, and a range of bus tours of the spaceport. The "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit contains the Atlantis orbiter and the Shuttle Launch Experience, a simulated ride into space. The center also provides astronaut training experiences, including a multi-axial chair and Mars Base simulator. The visitor complex also has daily presentations from a veteran NASA astronaut. A bus tour, included with admission, encompasses the separate Apollo/Saturn V Center. There were 1.7 million visitors to the visitor complex in 2016.
The Indian Human Spaceflight Programme (IHSP) is an ongoing programme by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to develop the technology needed to launch crewed orbital spacecraft into low Earth orbit. Three uncrewed flights, named Gaganyaan-1, Gaganyaan-2 and Gaganyaan-3 are scheduled to launch in 2024, followed by crewed flight in 2024 on an LVM3 rocket.
The Space Launch Complex 46 (SLC-46), previously Launch Complex 46 (LC-46), is a launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station operated under license by Space Florida previously used for Athena rocket launches. It has been used by Astra, which will continue the use with Rocket 4 and maybe 5 and will be used by ABL Space Systems for the near-term use by RS1.
Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by American space company SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX also launches private missions, such as Inspiration4 and Axiom Space Missions. There are two variants of the Dragon spacecraft: Crew Dragon, a spacecraft capable of ferrying four crewmembers, and Cargo Dragon, a replacement for the original Dragon 1 used to carry freight to and from space. The spacecraft consists of a reusable space capsule and an expendable trunk module. The spacecraft launches atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket and the capsule returns to Earth through splashdown.
An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is an ocean-going vessel derived from a deck barge, outfitted with station-keeping engines and a large landing platform, and is autonomously positioned when on station for a landing. Construction of the drone ships was commissioned by aerospace company SpaceX to allow recovery of launch vehicle boosters at sea for missions that do not carry sufficient fuel to return to the launch site after boosting spacecraft onto an orbital or interplanetary trajectory.
Crew Dragon Demo-2 was the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft, named Endeavour, launched on 30 May 2020 on a Falcon 9 rocket, and carried NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken to the International Space Station in the first crewed orbital spaceflight launched from the United States since the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011, and the first ever operated by a commercial provider. Demo-2 was also the first two-person orbital spaceflight launched from the United States since STS-4 in 1982. Demo-2 completed the validation of crewed spaceflight operations using SpaceX hardware and received human-rating certification for the spacecraft, including astronaut testing of Crew Dragon capabilities on orbit.
SpaceX CRS-13, also known as SpX-13, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station launched on 15 December 2017. The mission was contracted by NASA and is flown by SpaceX. It was the second mission to successfully reuse a Dragon capsule, previously flown on CRS-6. The first stage of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket was the previously flown, "flight-proven" core from CRS-11. The first stage returned to land at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone 1 after separation of the first and second stage.
Firefly Alpha is a two-stage orbital expendable launch vehicle developed by the American company Firefly Aerospace to compete in the commercial small satellite launch market. Alpha is intended to provide launch options for both full vehicle and rideshare customers.
The dearMoonproject is a lunar tourism mission and art project conceived and financed by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. It will make use of a SpaceX Starship spacecraft on a private spaceflight flying a single circumlunar trajectory around the Moon. The passengers will be Maezawa and eight other civilians, and there may be one or two crew members. The project was unveiled in September 2018 and was scheduled to launch in 2023. It has since been indefinitely delayed until Starship completes development. The project objective is to have eight passengers travel with Maezawa for free around the Moon on a six-day tour. Maezawa said that they expect the experience of space tourism to inspire the accompanying passengers in the creation of something new. If successful, the art would be exhibited some time after returning to Earth with the goal of promoting peace around the world.
Falcon 9 booster B1048 was a reusable orbital-class Block 5 Falcon 9 first-stage booster manufactured by SpaceX. B1048 was the third Falcon 9 Block 5 to fly and the second Block 5 booster to re-fly. It became the second orbital-class booster to fly a third time and is the first booster ever to be launched five times. B1048 service came to an end on its fifth flight when an engine shut down prematurely on launch. Whilst the primary mission was unaffected and the Starlink payload deployed successfully, B1048 was unable to land. In a subsequent investigation, SpaceX found that isopropyl alcohol, used as cleaning fluid, was trapped and ignited causing the engine to be shut down. To address the issue, in a following launch SpaceX indicated that the cleaning process was not done.
