Launch Complex 34 (LC-34) is a deactivated launch site on

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 sta ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. LC-34 and its companion

LC-37 Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37), previously Launch Complex 37 (LC-37), is a launch complex on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Originally built to support the Apollo program, the complex consists of two launch pads: LC-37A and SLC-3 ...

to the north were used by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

from 1961 through 1968 to launch

Saturn I The Saturn I was a rocket designed as the United States' first medium lift launch vehicle for up to low Earth orbit Payload (air and space craft), payloads.Terminology has changed since the 1960s; back then, 20,000 pounds was considered "heavy l ...

and IB

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

s as part of the

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

. It was the site of the

Apollo 1 Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was planned to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbital ...

fire, which claimed the lives of

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

Gus Grissom Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer and pilot in the United States Air Force, as well as one of the original Mercury Seven selected by the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration fo ...

, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee on January 27, 1967. The first crewed Apollo launch —

Apollo 7 Apollo 7 (October 11–22, 1968) was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that had killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test ...

on October 11, 1968 — was the last time LC-34 was used.

History

Construction

Work began on LC-34 in 1960, and it was formally dedicated on June 5, 1961. The complex consisted of a launch platform, umbilical tower, mobile service tower, fueling facilities, and a

blockhouse A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stro ...

. Two steel flame deflectors were mounted on rails to allow placement beneath the launch platform. The service tower was likewise mounted on rails, and it was moved to a position 185 meters west of the pad before launch. At 95 meters high, it was the tallest structure at LC-34. The blockhouse, located 320 meters from the pad, was modeled after the domed reinforced concrete structure at LC-20. During a launch, it could accommodate 130 people as well as test and instrumentation equipment. Periscopes afforded views outside the windowless facility.

Saturn I series

LC-34 saw its first launch on October 27, 1961. The first Saturn I, Block I, mission SA-1, lofted a dummy

upper stage A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own Rocket engine, engines and Rocket propellant, propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of anoth ...

on a

suborbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will no ...

trajectory into the Atlantic. The subsequent three Saturn I launches took place at LC-34, ending with

SA-4 The 2K11 ''Krug'' (; English: 'circle') is a Soviet Union, Soviet and now Russian medium-range, medium-to-high altitude surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. The system was designed by NPO Novator and produced by Kalinin Machine Building Plant. I ...

on March 28, 1963. The six ensuing Saturn I, Block II launches were conducted at

. On November 29, 1963, following the death of President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

, his successor

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...

issued Executive Order 11129 renaming both NASA's Merrit Island Launch Operations Center and "the facilities of Station No. 1 of the Atlantic Missile Range" (a reference to Canaveral AFB) the "John F. Kennedy Space Center". He had also convinced Gov. C. Farris Bryant (D-Fla.) to change the name of

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

to ''Cape Kennedy''. This resulted in some confusion in public perception, which conflated the two. NASA Administrator

James E. Webb James Edwin Webb (October 7, 1906 – March 27, 1992) was an American government official who served as Undersecretary of State from 1949 to 1952. He was the second Administrator of NASA, Administrator of NASA from February 14, 1961, to Octob ...

clarified this by issuing a directive stating the ''Kennedy Space Center'' name applied only to Merritt Island, while the Air Force issued a general order renaming the Air Force Station launch site ''Cape Kennedy Air Force Station''.

Saturn IB series

LC-34 was extensively modified to support

Saturn IB The Saturn IB (also known as the uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage (, 43,3 ...

launches, which began in February 1966. New anchor points were built to fasten the service structure in place during high winds. Access arms on the umbilical tower were rebuilt to match the larger rocket. At the 67-meter level, the swing arm was outfitted with a

white room "White Room" is a song by British rock band Cream, composed by bassist Jack Bruce with lyrics by poet Pete Brown. They recorded it for the studio half of the 1968 double album '' Wheels of Fire''. In September, a shorter US single edit (witho ...

to permit access to the command module at the top of a rocket. Two Saturn IBs (

AS-201 AS-201 (Also known as SA-201, Apollo 1-A, or Apollo 1 prior to the 1967 pad fire, flown February 26, 1966, was the first uncrewed test flight of an entire production Block I Apollo command and service module and the Saturn IB launch vehicle. T ...

and

AS-202 AS-202 (also referred to as SA-202 or Apollo 2) was the second uncrewed, suborbital test flight of a production Block I Apollo command and service module launched with the Saturn IB launch vehicle. It was launched on August 25, 1966, and was ...

) were successfully launched from LC-34 before the Apollo 1 fire brought Apollo activities at the spaceport to an abrupt halt. After the fire, extinguishing equipment was installed at the top of the umbilical tower, and a slide wire was set up to provide astronauts a quick escape in the event of an emergency. The first crewed Apollo launch—

on October 11, 1968—was the last time LC-34 was used. NASA considered reactivating both LC-34 and

for the

Apollo Applications Program The Apollo Applications Program (AAP) was created as early as 1966 by NASA headquarters to develop science-based human spaceflight missions using hardware developed for the Apollo program. AAP was the ultimate development of a number of official ...

, but instead LC-39B was modified to launch Saturn IBs. The geographical name change from ''Cape Canaveral'' to ''Cape Kennedy'' proved to be unpopular, owing to the historical longevity of Cape Canaveral. In 1973, both the Air Force Base and the geographical Cape names were reverted to Canaveral.

Launch Complex 34 today

After the decommissioning of LC-34, the umbilical tower and service structure were razed, leaving only the launch platform standing at the center of the pad. It serves as a memorial to the crew of Apollo 1. A dedicatory plaque affixed to the structure bears the inscription:

LAUNCH COMPLEX 34 Friday, 27 January 1967 1831 Hours Dedicated to the living memory of the crew of the Apollo 1 U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Virgil I. Grissom U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Edward H. White, II U.S.N. Lt. Commander Roger B. Chaffee They gave their lives in service to their country in the ongoing exploration of humankind's final frontier. Remember them not for how they died but for those ideals for which they lived.

Another plaque (which was shown in the film ''

Armageddon Armageddon ( ; ; ; from ) is the prophesied gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, according to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Armageddon is variously interpreted as either a literal or a ...

'')CollectSpace
/ref> reads:

IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO MADE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE SO OTHERS COULD REACH THE STARS
AD ASTRA PER ASPERA is a Latin language, Latin phrase meaning "to the stars". The phrase has origins with Virgil, who wrote in his ''Aeneid'': "''sic itur ad astra''" ('thus one journeys to the stars') and "''opta ardua pennis astra sequi''" ('desire to pursue t ...
(A ROUGH ROAD LEADS TO THE STARS) GOD SPEED TO THE CREW OF APOLLO 1

Also surviving at the LC-34 site are the two flame deflectors and the blockhouse. The original spherical Liquid Oxygen (LOX) tank at LC-34 was purchased by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

in 2008, moved to LC-40, refurbished (cleaned, pressure tested, painted white), and now used for Falcon 9 flights.

Gallery

File:Apollo 1 launch site 2009.jpg, Pad 34 after being turned into a memorial site File:Pad 34 flame deflectors.jpg, Saturn I and IB flame deflectors. Pad 37 is in the background. File:Pad 34 blockhouse.jpg, Blockhouse File:JFK Tour of KSC - GPN-2000-000605.jpg, NASA administrator James Webb, VP Johnson and President Kennedy are briefed during a tour of Blockhouse 34 in 1962 File:Pad 34 looking up.jpg, Underside File:Pad 34 abandon.jpg, "Abandon in place", which means to abandon it "as is", with no maintenance. Most of the historical launch sites at Cape Canaveral are categorized in this manner. File:Pad 34 astronaut memorial.jpg, Astronaut memorial kiosk Image:LC34 memorial benches.jpg, Granite

memorial bench A memorial bench, memorial seat or death bench is a piece of outdoor furniture which commemorates a dead person. Such benches are typically made of wood, but can also be made of metal, stone, or synthetic materials such as plastics. Typically m ...

es on the southern edge of the launch pad

Launch history

Statistics

List of launches

This is a complete list of all launches made from LC-34. All flights operated by

. Image:Saturn SA3 with rain cover on launch pad.jpg,

for mission

SA-3 The S-125 ''Neva/Pechora'' (, NATO reporting name SA-3 ''Goa'') is a Soviet surface-to-air missile system that was designed by Aleksei Isaev to complement the S-25 and S-75. It has a shorter effective range and lower engagement altitude than ei ...

in place on Pad 34, prior to November 1962 launch Image:Apollo 7 launch.jpg, upApollo 7 launch, photographed from behind the blockhouse

References

Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations

External links

{{Merritt Island Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Apollo program Apollo 1 Apollo 7 Launch complexes of the United States Space Force 1961 establishments in Florida