page_title: Kurt H. Debus
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Kurt H. Debus / Biography / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Dr. Werner Von Braun and Dr. Kurt Debus, Director of the Kennedy Space Center attending the Saturn 500F, rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The Saturn 500F, after testing the VAB stacking operations, was used to test the crawler transport and Launch Pad 39A operations.
context_page_description: Kurt Heinrich Debus was a German V-2 rocket scientist and ex-SS member for Nazi Germany who, after being brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip, in 1962 became the first director of NASA's Launch Operations Center.
  Debus directed the design, development, construction and operation of NASA's Saturn launch facilities at the north end of Cape Canaveral and adjacent Merritt Island in Florida. Under him, NASA conducted 150 launches of military missiles and space vehicles, including 13 Saturn V rockets, the booster for the Apollo manned moon landings.
context_section_description: In late 1945, Debus was transferred to Fort Bliss, Texas, under contract as a "special employee" of the U.S. Army, as were the other German rocket specialists.  He was deputy director at the Guidance and Control Branch through December 1948, when he was promoted to assistant technical director to von Braun at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
  The arsenal became the focal point of the Army's rocket and space projects; larger rockets were launched first from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and later from Cape Canaveral. The Army assigned von Braun as chairman of a Development Board, and Debus supervised the development program of the Guided Missile Branch until November 1951. The Army Ordnance Department reorganized the team and called it the Ordnance Guided Missile Center.  By November 1951, the pace had picked up and a new missile program, the Redstone, was taking shape. Von Braun named Debus to lead a new Experimental Missiles Firing Branch. Debus' organization also launched the first U.S. missiles carrying atomic warheads in the Pacific Ocean area during a series of tests.
  Starting in 1952, Debus supervised the development and construction of rocket launch facilities at Cape Canaveral for the Redstone, Jupiter, Jupiter-C, Juno and Pershing military configurations continuing through 1960. The organization he directed was transferred from the Army to NASA.
  Beginning in 1961, Debus directed the design, development and construction of NASA's Saturn launch facilities at the north end of Cape Canaveral and adjacent Merritt Island.
  On July 1, 1962, the Florida launch facility at Cape Canaveral was officially designated as NASA's Launch Operations Center (renamed to honor President John Kennedy after his assassination in 1963) and Debus was officially named its first director. In October 1965, he became responsible for NASA unmanned launch operations at the Eastern and Western Ranges, assuming the additional title of Kennedy Space Center (KSC) director of launch operations until Rocco Petrone took the post in 1966.
  Under Debus' leadership, NASA and its team of contractors built what was hailed as the Free World's Moonport — KSC's Launch Complex 39 — as well as tested and launched the Saturn family of rockets for the Apollo and Skylab programs. Debus retired as KSC director in November 1974.
caption: Debus (right) and Wernher von Braun at a Saturn V test vehicle rollout, 1966
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