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LC-46 Athena II with payload Lunar Prospector (photo credit NASA)
Launch complex 46 is the most eastern of the launch site on Cape Canaveral AFS, located right at the tip of the elbow of Merrit Island. This is the most recent launch complex to be built, though not the most modern. Other complexes have been repurposed or modernised since.
Originally constructed in the mid 1980s it was built to test the US Navy Trident II ballistic missile program. This program saw 18 Trident missiles launched between January 15th 1987 and January 26th 1989.
When the Trident program was completed the site was mothballed pending repurposing. This came in the mid 1990s when Space Florida won a contract to process small commercial space projects. The launch pad was fitted out with a new launch platform and mobile service structure and was certified for launches again in the late 1990s.
Under the new regime two Athena rockets have launched. January 1998 saw a lunar probe launched as part of the NASA Ames project. In January 1999 the ROCSAT-1 satellite was launched, the first satellite for Taiwan carrying experimental communications, ocean imagery, and ionospheric studies instruments.
