Short name LC-5 Launch pad(s) One Launches 23 Address Florida, USA | Operator U.S. Air Force Status Demolished First launch 19 July 1956 | |
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Launch site Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Similar Cape Canaveral Air Force, Cape Canaveral Air Force, Cape Canaveral Air Force, Cape Canaveral Air Force, Cape Canaveral Air Force | ||
Launch Complex 5 (LC-5) was a launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida used for various Redstone and Jupiter launches.
It is most well known as the launch site for NASA's 1961 suborbital Mercury-Redstone 3 flight, which made Alan Shepard the first American in space. It was also the launch site of Gus Grissom’s Mercury-Redstone 4 flight. The Mercury-Redstone 1 pad abort, Mercury-Redstone 1A, and Mercury-Redstone 2, with chimpanzee Ham aboard, also used LC-5.
A total of 23 launches were conducted from LC-5: one Jupiter-A, six Jupiter IRBMs, one Jupiter-C, four Juno Is, four Juno IIs and seven Redstones. The first launch from the complex was a Jupiter-A on July 19, 1956 and the final launch was Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 capsule on July 21, 1961.
LC-5 is located next to the Air Force Space & Missile Museum. The original consoles used to launch the Mercury-Redstone rockets are on display in the blockhouse. As of 2011 a tour of the blockhouse (and the museum) can be arranged through the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's "Cape Canaveral: Then and Now" tour. One tour is offered daily, so the number of visitors is limited by the size of the tour.