Operations and Checkout Building

The Space Systems Processing Facility (SSPF), originally the Space Station Processing Facility, is a three-story industrial building at Kennedy Space Center for the manufacture and processing of flight hardware, modules, structural components and solar arrays of the International Space Station, and future space stations and commercial spacecraft. It was built in 1992 at the space complex's industrial area, just east of the Operations and Checkout Building. The SSPF includes two processing bays, an airlock, operational control rooms, laboratories, logistics areas for equipment and machines, office space, a ballroom and conference halls, and a cafeteria. The processing areas, airlock, and laboratories are designed to support non-hazardous Space Station and Space Shuttle payloads in 100,000 class clean work areas. The building has a total floor area of 42,500 m2 (457,000 sq ft).

The Swamp Works is a lean-development, rapid innovation environment at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It was founded in 2012, when four laboratories in the Surface Systems Office were merged into an enlarged facility with a modified philosophy for rapid technology development. Those laboratories are the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations Lab, the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Lab, the Applied Chemistry Lab, and the Life Support and Habitation Systems (LSHS) team. The first two of these are located inside the main Swamp Works building, while the other two use the facility although their primary work is located elsewhere. The team developed the Swamp Works operating philosophy from Kelly Johnson's Skunk Works, including the "14 Rules of Management", from the NASA development shops of Wernher von Braun, and from the innovation culture of Silicon Valley. The team prototypes space technologies rapidly to learn early in the process how to write better requirements, enabling them to build better products, rapidly, and at reduced cost. It was named the Swamp Works for similarity with the Skunk Works and the Phantom Works, but branded by the widespread marshes (swamps) on the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island property of the Kennedy Space Center. The Swamp Works was co-founded by NASA engineers and scientists Jack Fox, Rob Mueller, and Philip Metzger. The logo, a robotic alligator, was designed by Rosie Mueller, a professional designer and the spouse of Rob Mueller.

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of American spaceflight, research, and technology. Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources, and operate facilities on each other's property. Though the first Apollo flights and all Project Mercury and Project Gemini flights took off from the then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the launches were managed by KSC and its previous organization, the Launch Operations Directorate. Starting with the fourth Gemini mission, the NASA launch control center in Florida (Mercury Control Center, later the Launch Control Center) began handing off control of the vehicle to the Mission Control Center in Houston, shortly after liftoff; in prior missions it held control throughout the entire mission. Additionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial crew missions and researches food production and in-situ resource utilization for off-Earth exploration. Since 2010, the center has worked to become a multi-user spaceport through industry partnerships, even adding a new launch pad (LC-39C) in 2015. There are about 700 facilities and buildings grouped throughout the center's 144,000 acres (580 km2). Among the unique facilities at KSC are the 525-foot (160 m) tall Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking NASA's largest rockets, the Launch Control Center, which conducts space launches at KSC, the Operations and Checkout Building, which houses the astronauts' dormitories and suit-up area, a Space Station factory, and a 3-mile (4.8 km) long Shuttle Landing Facility. There is also a Visitor Complex on site that is open to the public.

The Kennedy Space Center Headquarters Building is an eight-story office building that houses the administrative offices of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Constructed in April 2019, and also known as the Central Campus Facility, it incorporates the offices of the space center director, management staff, personnel, procurement and several hundred contractor and support workers. The building also houses the KSC Library, travel office, film and photo archives, photo processing shops, the Engineering Document Center, print shop, mail room, credit union and KSC security offices. The new eight story building houses 200,000 sq (18,580 sq m) of floor space, filled with modern offices (designed to resemble the original decor in the former building) and its other facilities integrated into one roof, and has air conditioning and energy-efficient adjustable LED lighting installed throughout.

Hypergol Maintenance and Checkout Facility was a rocket fuel and engine complex located in an isolated part of the Kennedy Space Center industrial area. It was constructed in 1964 to support the Apollo program and upgraded in 1985 to support the Space Shuttle program. The hypergolic propellants used in the Space Shuttle's reaction control system, Orbital Maneuvering System, and the auxiliary power units provided hydraulic power to the shuttle's control surfaces, main engines and brakes were stored and processed in part of the complex. Part of the facility was used for cryogenic testing during the Apollo program and Solid Rocket Booster aft skirt hot-testing. Among other structures, the facility included two hypergol storage buildings, a hazardous waste staging shelter, a liquid oxygen fuel pad, a liquid hydrogen fuel pad, leaching ponds and equipment shelters. Its Hypergol Support Building was recorded and documented by the National Park Service in 2013. Later, part of the facility became known as the Hypergol Maintenance Facility Hazardous Waste South Staging Area.

The Central Instrumentation Facility (CIF) was a building in the Kennedy Space Center industrial area that functioned as the core of instrumentation and data processing operations during the Apollo program and the early years of the Space Shuttle program. It centralized the handling of the center's data including offices, laboratories and test stations; and housed general instrumentation activities serving more than one launch complex. The CIF also included the Central Timing Facility, where a precision clock drove countdown clocks and other timing devices at KSC that required a high degree of accuracy. The CIF also housed computers and other electronic equipment for reduction of telemetry data, analysis, and transmission to other NASA centers. The three-story structure of approximately 134,335 sq ft (12,480.1 m2) just west of the KSC Headquarters Building was one of the most distinctive buildings in the KSC Industrial Area with its rooftop array of various antennas. The CIF was left dormant during the intermediate part of the space shuttle program (as other facilities such as the launch control center managed most of the instrumentation in the 2000s), and fell into disrepair. In September 2017, all the equipment inside was donated to the visitor complex and storage facilities, while the disused building was eventually demolished in October.

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is a 140,000-acre (57,000 ha) U.S. National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) on the Atlantic coast of Florida's largest barrier island. NASA's Kennedy Space Center and visitor complex are also situated on the island and NASA can restrict access to the refuge based on its operational needs. The NWR contains over 1000 species of plants, 117 species of fish, 68 amphibians and reptiles, 330 birds, and 31 mammal species, of which 21 species are listed as endangered by the state of Florida or by the US federal government. Management of the NWR is provided through the Merritt Island NWR Complex, which provides hiking and driving trails for the public, subject to access restrictions from NASA. It is a 'gateway site' for the Great Florida Birding Trail.

Exploration Park is a partnership formed in 2011 between NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Space Florida. There are 299 Acres on KSC property, but outside the NASA badge controlled area.As of March 2016, companies have the opportunity to lease office or research facilities, or build their own facilities. The park is aimed at research and development, office, and light manufacturing commercial activities. The leased land and agreement with Space Florida is a part of the NASA's efforts to "grow and deploy commercial space capabilities." Space Life Sciences Lab is a major facility on site CASIS is located at KSC in the Space Life Sciences Lab (SLSL) which is a founding element (in 2011) of the Exploration Park initiative Blue Origin broke ground on a new rocket manufacturing facility in Exploration Park in June 2016. OneWeb is building a satellite manufacturing facility onsite.

The Space Mirror Memorial, which forms part of the larger Astronauts Memorial, is a National Memorial on the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Merritt Island, Florida. It is maintained by the Astronauts Memorial Foundation (AMF), whose offices are located in the NASA Center for Space Education next door to the Visitor Complex. The memorial was designed in 1987 by Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones, and dedicated on May 9, 1991, to remember the lives of the men and women who have died in the various space programs of the United States, particularly those of NASA. The Astronauts Memorial has been designated by the U.S. Congress "as the national memorial to astronauts who die in the line of duty" (Joint Resolution 214, 1991). In addition to 20 NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of a U.S. Air Force X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, a civilian spaceflight participant who died in the Challenger disaster, and an Israeli astronaut who was killed in the Columbia disaster. In July 2019, the AMF unanimously voted to include private astronauts on the memorial, recognizing the important contributions made to the American space program by private spaceflight crew members. The first private astronaut to be added to the wall was Scaled Composites pilot Michael T. Alsbury, who died in the crash of SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise on October 31, 2014. His name was added to the memorial on January 25, 2020.

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the visitor center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It features exhibits and displays, historic spacecraft and memorabilia, shows, two IMAX theaters, and a range of bus tours of the spaceport. The "Space Shuttle Atlantis" exhibit contains the Atlantis orbiter and the Shuttle Launch Experience, a simulated ride into space. The center also provides astronaut training experiences, including a multi-axial chair and Mars Base simulator. The visitor complex also has daily presentations from a veteran NASA astronaut. A bus tour, included with admission, encompasses the separate Apollo/Saturn V Center. There were 1.7 million visitors to the visitor complex in 2016.

The United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, located inside the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Heroes & Legends building on Merritt Island, Florida, honors American astronauts and features the world's largest collection of their personal memorabilia, focusing on those astronauts who have been inducted into the Hall. Exhibits include Wally Schirra's Sigma 7 space capsule from the fifth crewed Mercury mission and the Gemini IX spacecraft flown by Gene Cernan and Thomas P. Stafford in 1966.

The Space Coast Next Generation Solar Energy Center is a 10 megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic (PV) facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commissioned in April 2010, the center is the result of a partnership between NASA and Florida Power & Light. The facility has approximately 35,000 solar photovoltaic panels from SunPower covering an area of 60 acres. The facility provides slightly less than one percent of the power needed to keep Kennedy Space Center up and running. A 1 MW solar photovoltaic array is also located at the Kennedy Space Center. The Space Coast Next Generation Solar Energy Center was the second largest-scale solar facility in Florida, with the 25 MW DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center being the largest, until the construction of the 75 MW Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center.