page_title: 6555th Aerospace Test Group
section_title: Titan IIIA/C (1961–1982)
hierarchical_section_title: 6555th Aerospace Test Group / History / Space launch operations / Titan IIIA/C (1961–1982)
caption_attribution_description: English: TITAN IIIC AND GANTRY ON PAD 40 - 23 May 1965
context_page_description: The 6555th Aerospace Test Group is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the Eastern Space and Missile Center and stationed at Patrick AFB, Florida. It was inactivated on 1 October 1990.
  Prior to the activation of the Air Force Space Command, the unit was responsible for the development of USAF missiles, both tactical surface-to-surface; CIM-10 Bomarc Interceptor; SM-62 Snark Intercontinental Cruise Missile; Intercontinental ballistic missile and heavy launch rockets used for military for satellite deployment. The unit played a key role in the civilian NASA Project Mercury, Project Gemini and Project Apollo manned space programs along with military Space Shuttle flights.
  The mission of the unit today is performed by the 45th Space Wing.
context_section_description: NASA's plans for the Saturn heavy-lift rocket program were already underway in 1961, and the agency saw no need for a military heavyweight space booster for low earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit or deep space missions. Consequently, NASA resisted the Air Force's first attempts to secure funding for the Titan III initiative, and the Air Force had to work long and hard to prepare its case for the Titan III.
  It was decided that the Titan III would be developed exclusively for Department of Defense heavy-lift orbital missions after 1965. Following that concession, initial funding for the Titan III contractual effort was granted on 11 December 1961, and Space Systems Division's new 624A Systems Program Office began managing the Titan III program four days later. Initially the Titan III was planned for use in the X-20 Dyna Soar manned space glider which could be boosted into orbit, maneuvered, and piloted back to earth. Plans for the program called for two unmanned and eight manned Titan IIIC space flights with manned glider landings at Edwards Air Force Base.  At Secretary McNamara's request, it was stopped by president Lyndon B. Johnson in December 1963 before any space flights were flown.
  Though Titan III Complex 41 extended across the Cape Canaveral boundary into NASA's territory on Merritt Island, all property within Complex 41's security fence and along the access road to the site was considered part of the Air Force's Titan III program. Put simply, NASA had jurisdiction over the Merritt Island Launch Area, the Saturn rocket program and Saturn rocket facilities on Merritt Island and Cape Canaveral. The Air Force had jurisdiction over Cape Canaveral, the Titan III program and all Titan III facilities, including Complex 41. Though the Air Force Eastern Test Range and its contractors continued to provide range support for all of NASA's launch vehicle programs on Merritt Island and Cape Canaveral, the Saturn rocket and Titan III rocket programs were pursued as distinctly separate NASA and Air Force launch efforts.
  Martin launched the first Titan IIIA from Complex 20 on 1 September 1964, and three more TITAN IIIA flights were completed before the first TITAN IIIC was launched from Complex 40 on a successful mission on 18 June 1965. Following the fourth and final TITAN IIIA launch on 6 May 1965, Complex 20 was deactivated and returned to the Air Force Eastern Test Range in September 1965. Complex 41 was turned over to the Titan III Division's Operations Branch for beneficial occupancy on 18 June 1965, and the facility was accepted by the Air Force in December 1965. The first Titan IIIC lifted off Pad 41 on 21 December. The flight met most of its test objectives, including the successful release of the LES-3 and LES-4 communications satellites and the OSCAR IV amateur radio satellite. Two more Titan IIIC missions were launched from Complex 41 on 16 June and 26 August 1966. The first of those flights included the successful release of seven Initial Defense Communications Satellite Program (IDCSP) satellites and one gravity gradient satellite, but the second flight ended after the Titan IIIC's payload fairing broke up approximately 79 seconds after launch. (Eight IDCSP satellites were destroyed in the mishap.)
  Another Titan IIIC was launched from Complex 40 on 3 November 1966, and it boosted a modified Gemini 2 spacecraft and three secondary satellites into orbit during a largely successful experimental mission on that date. Since the Air Force intended to use Complex 40 for its Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) flights. The MOL was cancelled in June 1969.
  Complex 41 eventually supported all the Titan IIIC missions launched from the Cape between the beginning of 1967 and the end of the decade. It was used by Titan IIIC rockets for a Project Viking simulator mission and a Project Helios solar mission in 1974, two NASA Project Viking (Viking 1, Viking 2) missions to Mars in 1975, another Project Helios mission in 1976, and two NASA Voyager program (Voyager 1, Voyager 2) missions to the outer planets in 1977.
  A Defense Support Progra
caption: Titan IIIC and Gantry on Launch Pad 40 – 23 May 1965
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