NASA Kennedy Space Center Launch Control Center LCC Patch

The first launch run from the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center was Apollo 4, the first Saturn V, on November 9, 1967. Thirteen months later the same building counted down Apollo 8, the first crewed launch from the center. The LCC is a four-story building attached to the southeast corner of the Vehicle Assembly Building. Its four firing rooms are where the launch team works the final countdown. Since February 2022 it has carried the name Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center, after the former director of launch operations.

Firing Rooms 2 and 3 were the primary control rooms through the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. Firing Room 1, the Young-Crippen Firing Room, ran launches from the first Apollo missions to the first shuttle flight, STS-1, with John Young and Robert Crippen aboard in April 1981. Firing Room 4 finished an extensive renovation in 2006 and handled processing and launch for the final shuttle missions. SpaceX later leased Firing Room 4 as the control center for Launch Complex 39A until August 2023. Firing Room 1 was refitted with new launch control software for the Space Launch System, and the building's SLS era began with Artemis I in 2022.

The patch is a shield 3.25 inches wide and 4 inches tall, with a white merrowed border. LCC sits across the top in big gold letters on royal blue, with LAUNCH CONTROL CENTER under it. A black band carries the team's own claim, WORLD'S GREATEST LAUNCH TEAM, in white. Below it the American flag fills the shield, and the long gray LCC building runs across the stripes while a rocket climbs past on a white exhaust trail. KSC in white on black closes out the point of the shield, and the patch has an iron-on backing.

Engineers, test conductors and contractors in those firing rooms have sat through scrubs, holds and long nights on console, then watched a vehicle clear the tower. Few places can say they sent crews to the Moon and then sent 135 shuttle missions on their way. The motto on this patch is the kind of thing a launch team says about itself, and the record backs it up. If you worked a countdown at Kennedy, you know the building on this patch.

It belongs in a shadow box with a launch badge and a mission patch from a flight you worked, or on a jacket at a KSC retirees' gathering. It is also a good gift for someone who grew up watching launches from the Banana River or the beaches of Titusville. One building, four firing rooms and countdowns from Apollo 4 to Artemis I.