Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 2


Space Launch Complex 2

Delta II at SLC-2W, with Gravity Probe B
Launch site Vandenberg AFB
Location 34.7545°N
120.6198°W
Short name SLC-2
Operator US Air Force
Total launches TBC
Launch pad(s) 2
Minimum / maximum
orbital inclination
51° – 145°
SLC-2W launch history
Status Active
Launches
First launch 17 September 1959
Last launch 28 October 2011
Associated rockets PGM-17 Thor
Thor-Agena
Delta
Delta II (current)
SLC-2E launch history
Status Inactive
Launches 52
First launch 16 December 1958
Last launch 12 March 1972
Associated rockets PGM-17 Thor
Delta
Thor-Agena
Thorad-Agena

Space Launch Complex 2 (SLC-2) is an active rocket launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, USA. It consists of two launch pads. The East pad (SLC-2E), which has been demolished, was used for Delta, Thor-Agena and Thorad launches between 1966 and 1972. The West pad, SLC-2W, has been used for Delta, Thor-Agena, and Delta II launches since 1966, and is still in service with the Delta II.

Space Launch Complex 2 was originally part of Launch Complex 75. When this complex was split up in 1966, the first launch to be made from the newly-redesignated Space Launch Complex 2 was that of a Delta E with ESSA-3 on 2 October 1966 from SLC-2E. The first launch from SLC-2W after redesignation was of a Thor-Agena with OPS 1584 on 29 December 1966.

SLC-2E and SLC-2W are located approximately 2,000 feet (610 m) apart.

Famous quotes containing the words space, launch and/or complex:

    Thus all our dignity lies in thought. Through it we must raise ourselves, and not through space or time, which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then, to think well: this is the mainspring of morality.
    Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

    I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is made ... and at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    In ordinary speech the words perception and sensation tend to be used interchangeably, but the psychologist distinguishes. Sensations are the items of consciousness—a color, a weight, a texture—that we tend to think of as simple and single. Perceptions are complex affairs that embrace sensation together with other, associated or revived contents of the mind, including emotions.
    Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)