Demolition
Of Space Launch Complex 41
Kennedy Space Center Cape Canaveral, Florida
By Jared Redyke, Brent Blanchard and Michael Taylor
(Originally
published in The Journal of Explosives Engineering
and Demolition Magazine)
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Thursday,
October 14, 1999 marked another important
milestone for America’s space program.
At exactly 10:05 AM EDT on a sunny Florida
morning, Dykon, Inc. of Tulsa, Oklahoma
detonated approximately 300 pounds of
explosives to fell the seven million pound
Umbilical and Mobile Service Towers at
Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at NASA’s
Cape Canaveral Air Station. |
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THE
HISTORY
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Completed
in 1965 at the height of the 'space race' to the moon,
the Mobile Service and Umbilical Towers (MST/UT) were
part of the Titan rocket launch facilities. The MST
stood 265 feet tall and weighed over five million pounds.
The UT topped out at 175 feet and weighed over 2 million
pounds.
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Initial
construction of SLC-41 began in April of 1965 with 6.5
million cubic yards of landfill dredged from the nearby
Banana River. The U.S. Air Force accepted the launch
site on December 12, 1965, and first used the facility
to launch an Air Force Titan-III-C rocket on December
15, 1965.
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Over
the next 34 years, the pad would serve as a starting
point for some of the most historic events in the nation’s
space program. NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 Mars Pathfinder
missions were launched from the site in 1975. In 1977,
the world's first deep space probes, Voyager 1 and 2
– which are still winging their way through the galaxy
today – were launched from SLC-41.
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Titan
III 8
carrying IDCSP satellites
August 26, 1966
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Viking
2
September 9, 1975
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Voyager
1
September 5, 1977
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In 1986, the complex underwent a $57
million renovation project in preparation for the Air
Force’s Titan IV rocket program. On June 14, 1989, the
first Titan IV was launched from the site. Ten years
later, after hosting some 26 additional launches, the
complex saw its final liftoff of an Air Force Titan
IVB rocket on April 9, 1999.
To understand the nature of SLC-41, it helps to visualize
a massive Titan IV rocket. These space transportation
vehicles are 112 feet high, 10 feet in diameter, weigh
some 1.9 million pounds and can generate 1.4 million
pounds of thrust at launch. The Titan IV B/Centaur,
an upgrade, is capable of placing payloads weighing
more than 12,000 pounds into geosynchronous orbit 22,000
miles above the earth. Even greater weight payloads
can be placed in low-earth or polar orbits by the Titan
IV.
Eventually, the evolutionary nature of modern technology
rendered the Titan system obsolete, and the Air Force
contracted with Lockheed Martin to develop a new system
known as the Atlas V. Lockheed engineers were charged
with designing and building both the Atlas Launch Vehicles
and their new launch platform.
The first phase of this switchover called for removing
the old towers so that new launch towers could be constructed.
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