What is the difference between Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center?

Question

Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center are both at pretty much the same location in Florida. I do not understand why they are referenced separately in media.

How much are they separate entities? Is there any significant difference between the two? For example, are launches from each subject to different regulations for the launch provider?

I get confused as well. Now that everybody calls it what sounds to me exactly like "KFC" I get even more confused. — uhoh, Jun 27 '18 at 18:28

Organic Marble · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-25T20:22:14.827

59

Supplementary answer:

Some of the confusion arises because there is also a geographic feature named Cape Canaveral. It's pretty much the green area shown in the other answer, east of the Banana River. On this geographic feature Cape Canaveral is built Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Today's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is built on Merritt Island.

Even more confusingly, in 1963 then-President Johnson named the geographic feature Cape Kennedy and the NASA site after President John Kennedy. (At the time what we now know as KSC was called the Launch Operations Center.) After the renaming we had Kennedy Space Center (not located on Cape Kennedy, but on Merritt Island) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (located on Cape Kennedy).

This drove the locals crazy, and in 1973 the state of Florida renamed the geographic feature Cape Canaveral, leading to the current situation.

And of course, in NASA parlance, "the Cape" is KSC. sigh

Need more? There is a town named Merritt Island and a town named Cape Canaveral! Fortunately, these are located on the appropriately named geographic features.

Year	Geographic Area	Facility	Town
1962
	Cape Canaveral	Cape Canaveral Air Force Station	Cape Canaveral
	Merritt Island	Launch Operations Center	Merritt Island
1965
	Cape Kennedy	Cape Canaveral Air Force Station	Cape Canaveral
	Merritt Island	Kennedy Space Center	Merritt Island
2018
	Cape Canaveral	Cape Canaveral Air Force Station	Cape Canaveral
	Merritt Island	Kennedy Space Center	Merritt Island

Today there is no such place as Cape Kennedy! Be in the cool kids club by never saying that phrase.

References:

Wikipedia: Cape Canaveral

Space.com: KSC

edited May 25 '22 at 20:22

answered Jun 27 '18 at 15:22

Organic Marble

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Could you add what (if any) is the role of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the whole space business? Why does the name Cape Canaveral appear so much in press reports etc, while Merritt Island is hardly mentioned? – SF. Jun 27 '18 at 17:37
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Almost all the launch complexes / pads are on CCAFS property, only the old Apollo/Shuttle pages (launch complex 39) are on NASA property. So practically all the launches are from CCAFS. There's a lot of overlap! NASA missions like New Horizons launch from CCAFS complexes....and there was one badging office for both, my badges said "NASA / CCAFS". – Organic Marble Jun 27 '18 at 18:02
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When I visited there in 2011, it was explained that Kennedy Space Center was only used for manned launches and all unmanned launches (which are more numerous) occurred at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. That of course was back when they were still doing manned launches from pad 39A with the space shuttle. Now 39A is used by SpaceX for unmanned launches as well, though they are working toward manned missions. – Seth R Jun 27 '18 at 19:06
@OrganicMarble Though the vast majority of manned launches have been from KSC, not CCAFS. – reirab Jun 27 '18 at 19:21
@reirab if you are responding to my comment, I was talking about the situation now, when there are no human spaceflight launches from the US. Obviously the vast majority of US human spaceflight launches have been from Complex 39. – Organic Marble Jun 27 '18 at 19:21
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@OrganicMarble Gotcha. Yes, it was the "practically all the launches are from CCAFS" part to which I was responding. Makes more sense if just referring to the current situation. – reirab Jun 27 '18 at 19:24
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Sorry it wasn't clear, would fix, but it's a comment and timed out. – Organic Marble Jun 27 '18 at 19:25
@Organic Marble: Copy comment text, paste in new comment and correct, delete old comment. – jamesqf Jun 27 '18 at 19:36
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OK, this is all much too confusing. Can we all just agree to use the term "The Rockety Place in Florida"? – David Richerby Jun 27 '18 at 21:38
Now now, you can't deny "them" their acronyms. RPF, and RFP are already taken. – coteyr Jun 28 '18 at 08:30
@reirab: Comments are comments, and in general shouldn't be added to answers. Also (IMHO, anyway) it would be insufferably rude to edit someone else's answer without invitation. – jamesqf Jun 28 '18 at 17:48
@jamesqf Sorry, I meant the person you were replying to (Organic) could just edit the answer (which they wrote,) not you. I agree that editing someone else's answer to add information without their permission would be rude. In this case, the information in Organic's comment would be useful to the answer itself, IMO. – reirab Jun 28 '18 at 18:43
I'm trying not to step on the original answer which actually "answers that which was asked." – Organic Marble Jun 28 '18 at 18:45
@OrganicMarble Fair enough. – reirab Jun 28 '18 at 19:12
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The most recent version of the CCAFS map (Nov 2017) – uhoh Jul 14 '18 at 09:29
The text says that the name change was in 1973, but the table implies that it was in 2018. – TRiG Nov 09 '18 at 10:47
The table shows the state at three different dates. It implies nothing about when any changes took place. – Organic Marble Nov 09 '18 at 13:59
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@user47149 I like your edit, but the entries in the cells need to line up with each other like they did in the original. "Cape Kennedy" needs to be on a line above Merrit Island. Otherwise the meaning is lost. https://i.imgur.com/fdUn2z7.png – Organic Marble May 25 '22 at 20:04
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@OrganicMarble I did not know to pay attention to that. Thanks for explanation, for approving +2 point reward, and taking your time to prepare the PNG image showing what you mean. I will pay attention to such things in the future. Cheers. – No Nonsense May 25 '22 at 20:53

PearsonArtPhoto · Answer 2 · 2018-06-27T15:19:04.883

33

Cape Canaveral is composed of two items, the Kennedy Space Center, run by NASA, and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, run by the Air Force. Because they are two very different organizations, the rules are quite different for each. See this map from Wikipedia to show the different locations. Note that Kennedy (NASA) owns launch pad 39a and b, while the rest of the launch pads are owned by the Air Force in Canaveral.

edited Jun 27 '18 at 15:19

answered Jun 27 '18 at 15:04

PearsonArtPhoto

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You know that I had never quite gotten that piece of information... Sigh. Will edit appropriately. – PearsonArtPhoto Jun 27 '18 at 15:17
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Technically KSC is not on Cape Canaveral the geographic feature. KSC is on Merrit Island. The Cape iis everything to the east of the Banana River. See my supplementary answer. – Organic Marble Jun 27 '18 at 15:23
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So I guess I was right in the first place? Sigh... I give up. – PearsonArtPhoto Jun 27 '18 at 16:09
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Interesting to see that only the Kennedy Space Center has a USB port. – curiousdannii Jun 28 '18 at 03:47
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@curiousdannii The military doesn't like USB ports, due the providing a medium for easily exfiltrating information. So, that's probably why NASA has one and the Air Force doesn't. That, or because the DoD regs to approve the use of USB were only started in the mid-1990s and, thus, haven't finished the approval process, yet. One of those. ;-) – reirab Jun 28 '18 at 19:16
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@curiousdannii It's terrible to park there - first you pull into the stall, then you pull out and try backing in, then you pull out again and pull in like normal and you can finally park your car. – corsiKa Jun 29 '18 at 20:14
@corsiKa I thought it was a new type of craft they were building. – Mast Jun 30 '18 at 08:34
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All joking aside, since I don't have the foggiest what the USB facility would be, I asked a new question. – Mast Jun 30 '18 at 12:53
@Mast Ah yes, that new craft is designed for a high speed transfer... orbit... – corsiKa Jun 30 '18 at 15:53
The most recent version of the CCAFS map (Nov 2017) – uhoh Jul 14 '18 at 09:29

What is the difference between Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center?

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