Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41

Space Launch Complex 41, sometimes referred to as "Slick Forty-one," is one of two launch sites at the Integrate-Transfer-Launch Complex in Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Originally built as Launch Complex 41, it and the neighboring Space Launch Complex 40 were designed for the United States Air Force's Titan III rocket program, where it launched the Titan IIIC in the 1960s and the Titan IIIE in the 1970s. In the 1990s, the Air Force and Martin Marietta upgraded the pad for use by the Titan III's successor, the Titan IV.
During the early 2000s, SLC-41 underwent modifications by Lockheed Martin in order to support the launch operations of the Atlas V. It was later transferred to United Launch Alliance —a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing—who continues to use the pad today for launches of the Atlas V and its successor, Vulcan Centaur.

History

Titan IIIC and IIIE (1965–1977)

Launch Complex 41 was originally built as part of the Integrate-Transfer-Launch Complex, intended to launch Titan III rockets with solid rocket boosters in a method to enable a rapid launch rate. The ITL consisted of a Titan assembly facility at the Vertical Integration Building, an SRB attachment facility at the Solid Motor Assembly Building, and two pads at Launch Complex 40 and LC-41, all connected by the first rail line at the Cape. The facilities were completed in 1964, and the first launch from LC-41 was of a Titan IIIC carrying four separate payloads on December 21, 1965.
Throughout the remainder of the 1960s, LC-41 was used to launch 10 Titan IIICs, the entirety of them being military payloads such as Vela nuclear detection satellites and Lincoln Experimental Satellites. The last Titan IIIC launch from LC-41 took place in May 1969, launching Vela satellites OPS-6909 and OPS-6911, the later of which would detect a double flash in the southern Indian Ocean and instigate the Vela incident ten years later. All remaining launches of the rocket were made from LC-40.
In the early 1970s, LC-41 underwent a modification to launch the Titan IIIE, which replaced the Transtage upper stage of the IIIC with a Centaur. With the exception of its inaugural flight in February 1974, every launch from the pad in this era contained a NASA payload. Those satellites were the two Helios probes sent to study the Sun, the two Viking probes sent to orbit and land on Mars, and the two Voyager spacecraft that flew by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The Titan III facility at Complex 41 was deactivated in late 1977, following September's launch of Voyager 1.

Titan IV (1989–1999)

In 1986, the existing mobile service tower and umbilical tower at LC-41 were both stripped down to their main structural components as part of a renovation conducted by Titan manufacturer Martin Marietta. This was done as part of their "tear-out and refurbish" contracts, which modified and prepared the ITL for its new rocket configuration: LC-40 would get converted to use the civilian-based Commercial Titan III, while LC-41 would be used for the military-focused Titan IV. Additionally, Titan IV processing would go through the newly-constructed Solid Motor Assembly Readiness Facility prior to launch. The maiden flight of the Titan IV occurred on June 14, 1989, carrying USA-39 for the United States Air Force. Similarly to most other Titan launches, all 10 launches of the Titan IV from LC-41 were classified military payloads, most going into geostationary transfer orbit.
The Titan family of the 1980s and 1990s was marred by its price in the eyes of commercial customers, who instead opted to use cheaper launch vehicles like Delta II and Ariane 4. Following Lockheed's merger with Martin Marietta in 1995, Lockheed Martin eventually decided to begin the process of retiring the Titan program in favor of their cheaper Atlas line. With any remaining Titan IV launches to be made from LC-40, the last Titan launch from LC-41 was on April 9, 1999, when a Titan IVB launched the USA-142 early warning satellite. The IUS upper stage failed to separate, leaving the payload stranded in a useless GTO orbit.

Atlas V and Vulcan Centaur (2002–present)

After the last Titan launch, LC-41 was renovated by Lockheed Martin and the Air Force to support the Atlas V as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, getting rechristened as SLC-41 in the process. The old launch tower and mobile service structure were demolished, while the new Vertical Integration Facility was built for the assembly of the new launch vehicle. Additionally, the rail lines going towards the pad were renovated to support the assembly and transportation of the Atlas V and it's mobile launcher platform for liftoff. SLC-41 was the site of the first-ever Atlas V launch on August 21, 2002, lifting Hot Bird 6, a Eutelsat geostationary communications spacecraft built around a Spacebus 3000B3 bus.
Over the years of the Atlas V era, SLC-41 was used to launch various noteworthy payloads for various agencies such as NASA and the Air Force. These include the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in August 2005, the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto in January 2006, the Juno mission to Jupiter in August 2011, and two of the Mars rover missions; Mars Science Laboratory in November 2011, and Mars 2020 in July 2020. Other notable payloads to be mentioned are various launches of the Boeing X-37B for the Air Force throughout the 2010s, and a couple of Cyngus flights to the International Space Station in 2015 and 2016 following the failure of Cygnus Orb 3.
In 2005, it was announced that a joint venture would form between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that would combine Atlas V operations at SLC-41 with Delta II and Delta IV operations at SLC-17 and SLC-37 respectively, following issues with profit abounding with competition between the two. This transfer in operation was made official in December 2006, with the formation of United Launch Alliance. The first launch from SLC-41 under ULA came in March 2007 with a variety of Department of Defense payloads lifting off from an Atlas V.
In 2011, the idea of rebuilding a launch tower at SLC-41 began to get proposed following Sierra Nevada Corporation and Boeing's decisions to have the Atlas V launch their respective Dream Chaser and CST-100 Starliner spacecraft into orbit. Proposals turned into plans in 2014, following Boeing's winning of a contract as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program to launch astronauts to the ISS. Pad modifications at SLC-41 began in September 2015 to support human spaceflight to support Starliner, including the addition of a launch service tower to provide access to the capsule for "pre-launch processing, crew access, and safety egress systems should the need to evacuate Starliner on the pad occur". The first launch utilizing the newly-built launch tower came on December 20, 2019 with the launch of the Boeing Orbital Flight Test. This was followed up with the first crewed launch to be made from SLC-41, which occurred on June 5, 2024 with the Boeing Crew Flight Test and carried astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams into orbit. This was the first crewed launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station since Apollo 7 in 1968 and made SLC-41 the seventh pad in the Cape Canaveral area to launch astronauts into space.
During the late 2010s and the early 2020s, SLC-41, the VIF, and the SMARF underwent minor modifications to support Vulcan Centaur, the successor to the Atlas V and Delta IV. This was in part due to the Atlas V using the Russian-built RD-180 as its first stage engine, which drew concern among Congress following the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As the Atlas V still had numerous pending launches, SLC-41's modifications were made to allow both rockets to take off from the pad, rather than a more traditional renovation like what was seen at Vandenberg's SLC-3E. The first Vulcan launch to be made from the pad occurred on January 8, 2024, carrying Peregine Mission One to the Moon as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services.

Launch history

Statistics

Titan III and IV

All launches operated by the United States Air Force.

No.	Date	Time	Launch vehicle	S/N and configuration	Payload/mission	Result	Remarks
1	21 December 1965	14:00	Titan IIIC	3C-8	LES-3 and LES-4		First launch from LC-41. Valve issue in the Transtage led to stage failure during a burn, leaving payloads stuck in geostationary transfer orbit.
2	16 June 1966	14:00	Titan IIIC	3C-11	OPS-9311 to OPS-9317		First successful launch from LC-41.
3	26 August 1966	14:00	Titan IIIC	3C-12	IDCSP × 7		Payload fairing failure occurred 73 seconds after launch, leading to range safety protocols being activated.
4	18 January 1967	14:19	Titan IIIC	3C-13	OPS-9321 to OPS-9328
5	28 April 1967	10:01	Titan IIIC	3C-10	OPS-6638 and OPS-6679
6	1 July 1967	13:15	Titan IIIC	3C-14	OPS-9331 to OPS-9334 and LES-5
7	13 June 1968	14:03	Titan IIIC	3C-16	OPS-9341 to OPS-9348
8	26 September 1968	07:37	Titan IIIC	3C-5	LES-6
9	9 February 1969	21:09	Titan IIIC	3C-17	TACSAT-1
10	23 May 1969	07:57	Titan IIIC	3C-15	OPS-6909 and OPS-6911		Final Titan IIIC launch from LC-41, with all remaining launches being conducted from LC-40. OPS-6911 was later made notable for causing the Vela incident in 1979, after detecting a double flash in the southern Indian Ocean.
11	11 February 1974	13:48	Titan IIIE	23E-1	Sphinx		Maiden flight of the Titan IIIE and first civilian payload to launch from LC-41. Centaur turbopump malfunction 12 minutes in led to RSO protocol.
12	10 December 1974	07:11	Titan IIIE	23E-2	Helios-A		First in a pair of heliophysics satellites aimed at close-up studies of the Sun. First launch into heliocentric orbit from a Titan rocket and from LC-41.
13	20 August 1975	21:22	Titan IIIE	23E-4	Viking 1		First launch of the Viking program, aimed at studying Mars from orbit and from the surface. First spacecraft to successfully land on Mars. First Titan flight and launch from LC-41 to another celestial body.
14	9 September 1975	18:39	Titan IIIE	23E-3	Viking 2		Second and final launch of the Viking program, aimed at studying Mars from orbit and from the surface.
15	15 January 1976	05:34	Titan IIIE	23E-5	Helios-B		Second in a pair of heliophysics satellites aimed at close-up studies of the Sun. Set a proximity record to the Sun that stood until the Parker Solar Probe in 2018.
16	20 August 1977	14:29	Titan IIIE	23E-7	Voyager 2		First launch of the Voyager program, aimed at studying the outer planets. First spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune, and second spacecraft to enter the interstellar medium.
17	5 September 1977	12:56	Titan IIIE	23E-6	Voyager 1		Second and final launch of the Voyager program, aimed at studying the outer planets. First spacecraft to enter the interstellar medium. Last flight of the Titan IIIE and last Titan III flight from LC-41.
18	14 June 1989	13:18	Titan IV	K-1, 402A / IUS	USA-39		Maiden flight of the Titan IV.
19	8 June 1990	05:21	Titan IV	K-4, 405A	USA-59 to USA-62		First Titan IV flight without any third stage.
20	13 November 1990	00:37	Titan IV	K-6, 402A / IUS	USA-65
21	3 May 1994	15:55	Titan IV	K-7, 401A / Centaur	USA-103
22	27 August 1994	08:58	Titan IV	K-9, 401A / Centaur	USA-105
23	10 July 1995	12:38	Titan IV	K-19, 401A / Centaur	USA-112
24	24 April 1996	23:37	Titan IV	K-16, 401A / Centaur	USA-118
25	8 November 1997	02:05	Titan IV	A-17, 401A / Centaur	NROL-4		NRO launch. Trumpet satellite, also known as USA-136. First acknowledged National Reconnaissance Office flight from LC-41.
26	12 August 1998	11:30	Titan IV	A-20, 401A / Centaur	NROL-7		NRO launch. Mercury satellite, didn't receive a USA designation. Guidance system failure 40 seconds into launch resulted in loss of control, leading to RSO protocols.
27	9 April 1999	17:01	Titan IV	B-27, 402B / IUS	USA-142		Payload failed to separate from IUS. Final Titan IV flight and launch of a Titan rocket from LC-41, with all remaining flights of the family being conducted from LC-40, SLC-4E, and SLC-4W.