A 179-foot mobile service tower at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., came crashing down on Aug. 6, helped along by explosives. The deliberate blast reduced to rubble a former key component of the country’s space programs. The structure was used to launch 51 Atlas/Agena space vehicles in the 1960s and 1970s—including the five lunar orbiter missions for NASA. The last launch was in 1978.
Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach a four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM.