KSC-05pd-1463

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - At the Shuttle Landing Facility on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, this new media building features a new Air Traffic Control Tower. The facility was dedicated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony July 8 that included Center Director Jim Kennedy, Space Gateway Support President William A. Sample, External Relations Director Lisa Malone, Center Operations Director Scott D. Kerr, and KSC Safety Aviation Officer Albert E. Taff. The facility was built for the Return to Flight mission STS-114 and the landing of Shuttle Discovery. The structure rises 110 feet over the midpoint of the runway and offers air traffic controllers a magnificent 360-degree view of Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and north Brevard County. It replaces the small, portable tower installed at the edge of the runway in 1986. The new control tower will manage all landings and departures from the SLF, including air traffic within the Kennedy Space Center-Cape Canaveral restricted airspace. The facility provides a 24-hour weather-observing facility providing official hourly weather observations for the SLF and the Cape Canaveral vicinity, including special observations for all launches and landings. State-of-the-art, weather-observing equipment has been installed for Space Shuttle landings and for serving conventional aircraft landing at the SLF. At this location, weather observers will have a multi-directional view of the weather conditions at the runway and Launch Complex 39.