
Launch towers that have graced Florida's Cape Canaveral since the early days of the space program came down Thursday morning.
Launch Complex 17 was set for demolition at 7 a.m.
Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith of the 45th Space Wing at Patrick Air Force Base gave the all-clear for the demolition, according to a Facebook post from the base.
The towers' demolition came almost seven years after the last launch at the site - when Delta II sent a pair of gravity mapping probes to the moon for NASA in September, 2011.
The Delta II program launched almost 50 Global Positioning System satellites from Florida for the Air Force, helping to establish a precise navigation and timing system that transformed military operations and which ordinary citizens rely upon daily for everything from driving directions to financial transactions.
Those towers helped to launch several high-profile NASA missions over the years, including the Pioneer probes and the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers.
"With 61 years of history and 325 launches, it's been a pretty incredible piece of the space community for many years", he explains.
After half a century of activity and 300 rocket launches, the two towers at LC-17 were retired today with a round of explosives.
The spaceflight firm, which has been developing robotic lunar landers for future NASA missions to the moon, has leased both LC-17 and the adjacent LC-18 from the USAF, but has no use for the twin launch towers.
The plot, originally designated Launch Complex 17 was built to support testing of the first operational ballistic missile of the United States "Thor".
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