Rose Knot operated under an Air Force contract with Pan American Airways Guided Missile Range Division headquartered in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

The ship was a Maritime Commission (MC) type C1-M-AV1 cargo vessel built by the Pennsylvania Shipyard Inc., Beaumont, Texas as MC hull 2335, yard number 334, official number 247277, was completed and delivered to the War Shipping Administration (WSA) ON 5 May 1945.

Rose Knot was briefly back in service under MSTS agreement with West Coast Steamship Company on 18 June through 8 August 1956 when it reentered the Olympia fleet.

[7] On 1 July 1964 the USAF tracking ships were transferred to the custody of the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) for operation.

[13][14] The ship functioned as a telemetry station located off the coast of Africa at 5N 10W for Mercury-Atlas 6, the February 20, 1962, mission in which John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth.

[citation needed] For Gordon Cooper's May 15–16, 1963, Mercury-Atlas 9 orbital mission, the ship was stationed in the Pacific near Pitcairn Island.

[13] For Project Gemini, it served as a primary tracking station (call sign RKV) off the coast of Peru.

Rose Knot operated in the intercontinental ballistic missile re-entry area near Ascension Island, and was home-ported out of Recife, Brazil.

Rose Knot was placed in custody of the Suisun Bay reserve fleet on 26 March and permanently transferred 25 October 1968.