Cape Canaveral, which sits between Jacksonville to the north and Miami to the south, hosts two launch sites: Kennedy Space Center, on Merritt Island; and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on the cape. The Cape is America’s gateway to the cosmos.

The Cape had a big advantage over other locations — it was selected for two reasons: the fact that it is relatively near to the equator compared with other U.S. locations; and the fact that it is on the East Coast.

An East Coast location was desirable because any rockets leaving Earth’s surface and travelling eastward get a boost from the Earth’s west-to-east spin. A West Coast location would either send rockets over populated areas or have to contend with launching against the direction of the spin.

Why do rockets launch from Florida?

“And, the rate of spin is at its highest on the equator and slowest at the poles, so the Cape’s southern location also gave it a boost,” said Stan Starr, chief of the Applied Physics Branch at Kennedy Space Center.

Since Cape Canaveral is about 28.5 degrees above the equator, the boost a rocket gets there is a little less than Earth’s spin rate exactly on the equator. That boost ends up being about 914 mph (1,471 km/h), according to NASA. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, needs to reach about 17,000 mph (27,000 km/h) when it enters Earth’s atmosphere, Space.com reported.

Source: www.livescience.com

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 6th, 2020