Launches at Cape Canaveral - Then and Now

as sometimes happens i found in the midst of working on a video that i needed to do a different video first about what companies are currently operating at cape canaveral while writing that i realized that talking about the current state of the cape didn't make a lot of sense without some information about the history of the cape to get started there are two different entities that have launched facilities on the cape there's kennedy space center and there is cape canaveral space force station they are different organizations but commercial payloads can launch from space force locations and military payloads can launch from kennedy space center locations let's start by clarifying where the cape is it's on the east coast of florida pretty much due east from orlando best known for disney world here's a closer view before we start we should probably define what a launch complex is we're used to big complexes like the pad 39a complex used by apollo or pad 36a and b used for atlas centaur but the term also applies to simple setups like this one used for redstone or even this one used for matador cruise missile launches while canaveral is is mostly a spaceport now in the early days it launched a much more diverse set of vehicles note that the launch pad is the physical support for the rocket while the launch complex includes the launch pad and all the support equipment for the pad also note that in common usage this distinction is very often ignored the launch complexes of the cape have a very strange numbering system one that evolved over time the following is a short journey through the history of the launch complexes including the first vehicle that used each launch complex we start in 1950 with launch pads 1-4