Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Gate 1 Zoom

Gate 1 is the southernmost gate of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It is slightly north of Port Canaveral. The gate itself is a few hundred yards east of this sign.

The area that now makes up Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was established in 1949 as the Joint Long Range Proving Ground, a facility dedicated to the testing of rockets and missiles. This later became the Cape Canaveral Auxiliary Air Force Base. It supported most of America's unmanned launches, and all of the manned launches up until part way through the Apollo program, when manned launches were moved to the newly established NASA Launch Operations Center. The NASA Launch Operations Center was built north of Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island, when it became evident that Complexes 34 and 37 would not be able to support all of the planned Apollo launches.

After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, President Lyndon B. Johnson joined the two facilities under one name: John F. Kennedy Space Center. To avoid confusion, the two facilities were later renamed (separately) to "John F. Kennedy Space Center, NASA," and "Cape Kennedy Air Force Station." Starting with the Apollo 8 mission in December of 1968, all manned launches were conducted at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (later renamed to "Kennedy Space Center," and frequently abbreviated to "KSC").

Cape Kennedy Air Force Station continued to support unmanned launches. It was renamed Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in 1973. In 1992, CCAFS was renamed to Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS). Most recently, in 2000, the name was changed back to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

See Complex 30
See Gate 1 as it appeared in 1996
CCAFS Virtual Tour homepage
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