Obituary: Rocco Petrone

Rocco Petrone, who was director of launch operations at Kennedy Space Centre in the 1960s has died aged 80.

He was watching launch operations centre TV screens on January 27, 1967, when a fire in the Apollo 1 command module killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. "The thing exploded in 19 seconds ... those minutes were heart-rending," he said later.

In 1969, the year of the historic Apollo II moon landing, he was named director of the entire Apollo programme.