The Kennedy Space center has sent many rockets into outer space. You can see all of these rockets in the NASA rocket garden, located in the Kennedy Space Center. One of its recent rocket launches was on November 26, 2011. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launched for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. They sent a Curiosity rover that explored the red wasteland of Mars, to see if this mysterious planet has any life on it.
There is an upcoming rocket launch on February 16, 2012 at 5:46-6:30PM EST. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the Navy's first ever Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite!
It was built by Lockheed Martin.
Another famous mission from the Kennedy Space Center was Project Mercury. It was the first human spaceflight program of the United States. The goal was putting to put a human in orbit around the Earth for as long as one day. It ran from 1959 to 1963. It included 20 unmanned launches, 2 suborbital, and 4 orbital flights with astronaut pilots. Mercury laid the groundwork for project Gemini and the Apollo moon-landing program. For more information on Project Mercury click here.
The second human spaceflight program for NASA was project Gemini. It had ten manned flights occurring in 1965 and 1966.The entire duration lasted from 1962-1966. It's mission was to put humans in space to create techniques to support Apollo. For more information on Gemini click here.
The Apollo Missions ran between 1961 and 1975. They were a series on both manned and unmanned space missions flown by NASA. Apollo 11 was the first flight to land humans on the moon. These people were Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. This happened on July 20, 1969 at 20:17:39 UTC. It is considered the major accomplishment in the history of space exploration. For more info click here.
For more information on the rockets and the upcoming launches, click here.
