In December 1959, the Department of Defense transferred 5,000 personnel and the Missile Firing Laboratory to NASA to become the Launch Operations Directorate under NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The military had been performing launch operations since 1949 at what would become Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. There is also a Visitor Complex open to the public on site. Among the unique facilities at KSC are the 525-foot (160 m) tall Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking NASA's largest rockets, the Launch Control Center, which conducts space launches at KSC, the Operations and Checkout Building, which houses the astronauts dormitories and suit-up area, a Space Station factory, and a 3-mile (4.8 km) long Shuttle Landing Facility. There are about 700 facilities and buildings grouped across the center's 144,000 acres (580 km 2). Since 2010, the center has worked to become a multi-user spaceport through industry partnerships, even adding a new launch pad ( LC-39C) in 2015. Īdditionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial crew missions and researches food production and in-situ resource utilization for off-Earth exploration. Starting with the fourth Gemini mission, the NASA launch control center in Florida ( Mercury Control Center, later the Launch Control Center) began handing off control of the vehicle to the Mission Control Center in Houston, shortly after liftoff in prior missions it held control throughout the entire mission. Though the first Apollo flights and all Project Mercury and Project Gemini flights took off from the then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the launches were managed by KSC and its previous organization, the Launch Operations Directorate. The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources and operate facilities on each other's property.
Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC.
Since December 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight. Kennedy Space Center ( KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers.