Towers once planned for California shuttle launches leveled for SpaceX rockets

In the end, only the prototype Enterprise was stood up with an external tank and solid rocket boosters on SLC-6 before the Challenger tragedy in 1986 caused the DOD to rethink its reliance on the shuttle. Again, the Air Force walked away from the built-up facility, having never launched a single mission. NASA’s prototype space shuttle orbiter Enterprise, stacked with an external tank and two solid rocket boosters, stands at Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6), flanked by the assembly building and mobile service tower at Vandenberg Air Force Base (today Vandenberg Space Force Base) in California in February 1985. Credit: U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. James Pearson NASA’s prototype space shuttle orbiter Enterprise, stacked with an external tank and two solid rocket boosters, stands at Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6), flanked by the assembly building and mobile service tower at Vandenberg Air Force Base (today Vandenberg Space Force Base) in California in February 1985. Credit: U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. James Pearson After a brief effort to revive SLC-6 for use with the Titan IV in the early 1990s, the site finally saw its first operational use with the launch of Lockheed Martin’s LMLV-1 in 1995, followed by Athena I and Athena II rockets with payloads for NASA and Space Imaging (later GlobalEye) in 1997 and 1999, respectively. …