Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 3

Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 3

Space Launch Complex 3 (SLC-3) is a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base that has been used by Atlas and Thor rockets. It was built in the early 1960s and consists of two pads, SLC-3E (East) and SLC-3W (West). The East-West coastline at Vandenberg allows SLC-3 to launch over-ocean polar trajectories that avoid landfall until passing over Antarctica. By contrast, Cape Canaveral has a North-South coastline permitting over-ocean launches into standard orbits.

Read more about Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 3:  SLC-3E, SLC-3W

Famous quotes containing the words space and/or launch:

    Shall we now
    Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
    And sell the mighty space of our large honors
    For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
    I had rather be a dog and bay the moon
    Than such a Roman.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    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)