Merritt Island is Florida’s largest island, although the manmade Crawlerway built in the 1950s to move NASA’s space vehicles into position for launch technically turned the island into a peninsula. This Brevard County island on Florida’s east coast is home to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a 140,000 acre nature sanctuary. The waters surrounding Merritt Island include the Indian River Lagoon and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway to the west and south, and the Banana River Lagoon to the east.