White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a
rocket rangeA rocket range or missile range is a large area associated with a rocket launch site. The range includes the area over which launched rockets are expected to fly, and within which some components of the rockets may land...
of almost in area, the largest military installation in the United States. WSMR includes the
Oscura Range and the
WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range. WSMR and the 600,000-acre
Fort BlissFort Bliss is a United States Army post in the U.S. states of New Mexico and Texas. With an area of about , it is the Army's second-largest installation behind the adjacent White Sands Missile Range. It is TRADOC's largest installation, and has the Army's largest Maneuver Area behind the National...
Range Complex' to the south, form a contiguous swath of territory for military testing.
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a
rocket rangeA rocket range or missile range is a large area associated with a rocket launch site. The range includes the area over which launched rockets are expected to fly, and within which some components of the rockets may land...
of almost in area, the largest military installation in the United States. WSMR includes the
Oscura Range and the
WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range. WSMR and the 600,000-acre
Fort BlissFort Bliss is a United States Army post in the U.S. states of New Mexico and Texas. With an area of about , it is the Army's second-largest installation behind the adjacent White Sands Missile Range. It is TRADOC's largest installation, and has the Army's largest Maneuver Area behind the National...
Range Complex' to the south, form a contiguous swath of territory for military testing. The missile range is located in
New MexicoNew Mexico is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, it has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S...
.
Current Operations
- At White Sands Test Facility
White Sands Test Facility is a rocket engine test facility and a resource for testing and evaluating potentially hazardous materials, space flight components, and rocket propulsion systems. NASA established WSTF on the White Sands Missile Range in 1963...
(WSTF), Ground Support for the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) network of communications satellites system
- At WSTF
White Sands Test Facility is a rocket engine test facility and a resource for testing and evaluating potentially hazardous materials, space flight components, and rocket propulsion systems. NASA established WSTF on the White Sands Missile Range in 1963...
, Solar Dynamics ObservatoryThe Solar Dynamics Observatory is a NASA mission under the Living With a Star program. The goal of the LWS program is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to effectively address those aspects of the connected Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society.- General :The SDO...
- SDO ground station consists of two dedicated (redundant) radio antennas at White Sands.
- Orion Project
Orion is a spacecraft design currently under development by the United States space agency NASA. Each Orion spacecraft will carry a crew of four to six astronauts. The spacecraft is designed to be launched by the Ares I, a launch vehicle, also currently under development...
Launch AbortA Launch Escape System is a top-mounted rocket connected to the crew module of a crewed spacecraft and used to quickly separate the crew module from the rest of the rocket in case of emergency...
Flight Test Complex
- Missile testing and range recovery operations
Chronology
1944 February:
Major General Gladeon M Barnes, chief of the Technical Division of the Office of Chief of
OrdnanceThe United States Army Ordnance Corps is a combat service support branch of the United States Army, headquartered at Fort Lee, Virginia. The mission of the Ordnance Corps is to "support the development, production, acquisition and sustainment of weapons systems and munitions, and to provide...
in Washington, sent teams of the War Department and the Ordnance Department of the Corps of Engineers to look for a US site for missile research.
1945 February 20: The Secretary of War approved the establishment of White Sands Proving Ground.
1945 Spring:
Private F test firingThe Private was the first U.S. step rocket, combining a Tiny Tim rocket and a 30AS-1000C JATO unit. Tsien Hsue-shen was the JPL section leader who directed research for the Private A....
1945 July 16: Trinity (nuclear test)
1945 July (end): 300 railroad cars of V-2 rocket components arrived at WSPG, with launches at
launch complex 33.
1945 September 26-October 25: The first firing tests of the WAC-Corporal were carried out at the WSPG.
1946:
1st US V-2 rocket test (
Hermes projectThe Hermes project was an Ordnance Corps rocket program ....
, 1946)
1949: German rocket scientists of
Operation PaperclipOperation Paperclip was the code name for the 1945 Office of Strategic Services, Joint Intelligence Objectives Agencyrecruitment of German scientists from Nazi Germany to the U.S...
at WSPG and
Fort BlissFort Bliss is a United States Army post in the U.S. states of New Mexico and Texas. With an area of about , it is the Army's second-largest installation behind the adjacent White Sands Missile Range. It is TRADOC's largest installation, and has the Army's largest Maneuver Area behind the National...
moved to
Redstone ArsenalRedstone Arsenal is a U.S. Army post and a census-designated place located next to the city of Huntsville in Madison County, Alabama, United States and is part of the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. The primary tenant organizations are the United States Army Aviation and Missile...
.
1963-1966:
Little Joe IIThe Little Joe II tests were tests for the LES.- Little Joe II program :From August 1963 to January 1966, a series of unmanned flight tests were conducted at the White Sands Missile Range to demonstrate the adequacy of the Apollo launch escape system and to verify the performance of the command...
Apollo program
launch escape systemA Launch Escape System is a top-mounted rocket connected to the crew module of a crewed spacecraft and used to quickly separate the crew module from the rest of the rocket in case of emergency...
tests at WSMR Launch Complex 36
1982:
STS-3STS-3 was the third space shuttle mission, and was the third mission for the Space Shuttle Columbia. It was the first launch with an unpainted external tank, and the only landing so far at the White Sands Space Harbor near Las Cruces, New Mexico.-Crew:...
landed at WSMR
1983-1993: The
SimtelSimtel is an Internet-based archive of shareware for various operating systems, particularly Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS. The Simtel archive has been available on the public Internet since 1993, when its older ARPANET host was shut down....
shareware archive was hosted at WSMR on
ARPANETThe ARPANET created by ARPA of the United States Department of Defense during the Cold War, was the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the global Internet....
1985 October 3: White Sands V-2 Launching Site (Launch Complex 33) designated a
National Historic Landmark.
2004: The
American Institute of Aeronautics and AstronauticsThe American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is the professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA was founded in 1963 from the merger of two earlier societies: the American Rocket Society , founded in 1930 as the American Interplanetary Society , and the Institute...
named the
WSPG an
Historic Aerospace Site.
2004 May: Refurbished
MittelwerkCentral Works was an underground World War II factory that used Mittelbau-Dora forced labor in 2 main tunnels in the Kohnstein.-Mittelwerk GmbH:...
V-2 rocket #FZ04/20919 returned to the
WSMR Museum after being taken to the
Kansas Cosmosphere and Space CenterThe Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is a museum and educational facility in Hutchinson, Kansas that is best known for the display and restoration of space artifacts and educational camps.- General information:...
in September 2002 for restoration.
2007 November 14: NASA and a handful of community representatives broke ground at the
Launch Complex-32 site for the
Orion Abort Flight Test Launch Complex.