Legendary NASA Countdown Clock Finds New Home at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

one of the most watched timepieces in the world

BREVARD COUNTY • KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA – The iconic NASA countdown clock, once seen during historic Apollo and Space Shuttle launches, now stands at the entrance of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. After more than 40 years of service, the retired timepiece continues to inspire visitors as a symbol of America’s space legacy.

Visitors arriving at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex are greeted by a piece of spaceflight history before even passing through the ticket gates. Just to the left of the orange ticket kiosks stands a massive digital clock: a quiet sentinel of the Space Age and one of the most watched timepieces in the world, second only to London’s Big Ben.

This is NASA’s world-famous countdown clock, the same one seen in countless historic broadcasts of rocket launches. For more than four decades, it stood at the Kennedy Space Center Press Site, ticking down to some of the most defining moments in human exploration.

Installed in 1969 for the Apollo 12 mission, the clock marked every launch from that flight onward, including all subsequent Apollo missions, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Skylab, and 30 years of space shuttle launches, from Columbia’s first liftoff to Atlantis’s final flight.

It even counted down the first four SpaceX Commercial Resupply Service missions to the International Space Station.

Measuring 10 feet tall and 26 feet long, the clock’s six digits, each four feet high and two feet wide, were illuminated by 349 light bulbs, 56 per digit.

Its last official countdown came in 2014, for SpaceX’s CRS-4 mission, before NASA replaced it with a modern digital display capable of streaming live video and full-color graphics.

The historic clock, officially added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000, was relocated to its current home at the Visitor Complex in 2016. There, perched on a small hill at the entrance, it serves not as a timer but as a monument — a reminder of humanity’s boldest aspirations.

For decades, it told the world when to hold its breath. Today, it stands silently, welcoming visitors as a symbol of the countless launches, dreams, and discoveries that began with its final seconds.

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