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A launch centre on Merritt Island
NASA’s Launch Operations Center was established on Merritt Island, on Florida’s Atlantic coast, on 1 July 1962. On 29 November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson renamed it the John F. Kennedy Space Center. By October 1965 the two pads of Launch Complex 39 were complete, beside the Vehicle Assembly Building, 160 metres (525 feet) tall.


Apollo and the Moon
On 16 July 1969, Apollo 11 lifted off from Pad 39A on a Saturn V rocket. The Apollo/Saturn V Center, opened at the visitor complex on 17 December 1996, tells the story of the Apollo programme around one of these giant rockets.
From the Space Shuttle to Artemis
The first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1, launched from the centre on 12 April 1981 aboard Columbia. Space Shuttle Atlantis went on display at the visitor complex on 29 June 2013, and on 16 November 2022 Artemis I lifted off from Pad 39B on NASA’s Space Launch System.

