Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 41

Space Launch Complex 41

An aerial view of SLC-41. The Atlas V on the pad is the one used to launch New Horizons to Pluto.
Launch site	Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
Location	28°35′00″N 80°34′59″W / 28.58333°N 80.58306°W / 28.58333; -80.58306Coordinates: 28°35′00″N 80°34′59″W / 28.58333°N 80.58306°W / 28.58333; -80.58306
Short name	SLC-41
Operator	United States Air Force
Total launches	71
Launch pad(s)	1
Min / max orbital inclination	28° - 57°
Launch history Status Active First launch 21 December 1965 Titan IIIC / LES-3/4 Last launch 6 December 2015 Atlas V / CRS OA-4 Associated rockets Titan IIIC Titan IIIE Titan IV Atlas V (current)

A Titan IV on LC-41 in 1996. The steel towers visible at the left and right are part of the lightning protection system.

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41), previously Launch Complex 41 (LC-41), is an active launch site at the north end of Cape Canaveral, Florida at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.^[1][2] The site is currently used by United Launch Alliance (ULA) for Atlas V launches. Previously, it had been used by the Air Force, for Titan III and Titan IV launches.

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 off-pad and then transported by rail to one of the two pads. The Titan III facilities included both LC-40 and LC-41, assembly buildings including the Vertical Integration Building, and the first rail line at the Cape.^[3] The facilities were completed in 1964, and the first launch from LC-41 was of a Titan IIIC, carrying four separate payloads, on December 21, 1965.

Titan IV

LC-41 was also the pad used for the maiden flight of the Titan IV. The last Titan launch from LC-41 was on April 9, 1999, when a Titan IVB launched the USA 142 early warning satellite. The IUS upper stage failed to separate, leaving the payload stranded in a useless GTO orbit.

Atlas V

After the last Titan launch, the complex was renovated, and since 2002, LC-41 has been used by ULA for Atlas V launches. The maiden flight of Atlas V launched from LC-41 on August 21, 2002. The Atlas V booster lifted Hot Bird 6, a Eutelsat geostationary communications spacecraft built around a Spacebus 3000B3 bus.

Until 2005, Atlas V rockets were assembled vertically on a mobile launch platform in the Vertical Integration Facility, once located to the south of the pad. The platform was transported to the launch pad on rails, about a day before launch.

Modifications for supporting human spaceflight

An Atlas V on the pad, with construction on the crew access tower paused for a launch. (December 2015)

In September 2015, pad modifications began to support human spaceflight via the Boeing CST-100 Starliner capsule.^[4][5]

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."^[4]

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 Viking 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 in December 2004, the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto in January 2006, The Juno mission to Jupiter in August 2011,^[6] and The Mars Science Laboratory to Mars in November 2011.^[7][8]

See also

• List of Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island launch sites

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 41.

• Cape Canaveral LC41 page at Encyclopedia Astronautica