White Sands Missile Range

Significant events

• The first atomic bomb was test detonated at Trinity Site near the northern boundary of the range on July 16, 1945; seven days after the White Sands Proving Ground was established.
• After the conclusion of World War II, 100 long-range German V-2 rockets that were captured by U.S. military troops were brought to WSMR. Of these, 67 were test fired between 1946 and 1951 from the White Sands V-2 Launching Site.
• NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia landed on the Northrup Strip at WSMR on March 30, 1982 as the conclusion to mission STS-3. This was the only time that NASA used WSMR as a landing site for the space shuttle.

Incidents

• Circa May 30, 1947, a German V-2 sounding rocket fired from White Sands Proving Ground veered off course, crashed and exploded on top of a rocky knoll 3.5 miles south of the Juarez, Mexico business district.
• On July 11, 1970, the United States Air Force launched an ATHENA V-123-D rocket from the Green River Launch Complex in Utah. While its intended target was inside of WSMR, the rocket instead flew south and impacted 180–200 miles south of the Mexican border in the Mapimi Desert in the northeastern corner of the Mexican state of Durango.

  Geography

1. Doña Ana County
2. Otero County
3. Socorro County
4. Sierra County
5. Lincoln County

   Nearby military bases

• WSMR borders the McGregor Range Complex at Fort Bliss to the south making them contiguous areas for military testing.
• Holloman AFB borders WSMR to the east.

  Nearby cities

• Las Cruces, New Mexico to the west.
• Alamogordo, New Mexico to the east.
• Chaparral, New Mexico to the south.
• El Paso, Texas to the south.

  National park and wildlife refuge

• White Sands National Park
• San Andres National Wildlife Refuge

  Transportation

Major highways

• U.S. Highway 70 traverses the southern part of the range in a west-northeast direction and is subject to periodic road closures during test firings at the range.
• NM 213 enters the range from the south from Chaparral, New Mexico and terminates at U.S. Highway 70.

  Nearby airports

• Las Cruces International Airport – No current regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights since July 25, 2005, when Westward Airways ceased operations. General aviation, New Mexico Army National Guard, private charters and CAP use the airport, among others.
• El Paso International Airport – Nearest airport with regularly scheduled commercial flights.

  National Historic Landmarks

• Trinity Site: Selected in November 1944 for the Trinity nuclear test conducted on July 16, 1945.
• White Sands V-2 Launching Site: A V-2 static test firing was March 15, 1946, and the first US V-2 launch was April 16, 1946.

  Current operations

• The Launch Abort Flight Test Complex for the Pad Abort-1
• White Sands Launch Complex 37, built for Nike Hercules tests
• White Sands Launch Complex 38, built for Nike Zeus tests with Launch Control Building now used for Patriot missile firings
• "WSMR Main Post", which includes several smaller areas such as the housing area, golf course, "Navy Area", and "Technical Area"
• * :commons:White Sands Missile Range Museum|WSMR Museum tours and exhibits, which include V-2 rocket returned in May 2004 after restoration.
• * White Sands Hall of Fame, which inducts members such as the first range commander, Col. Harold Turner, in 1980.
• * 1972 DoD Centers for Countermeasures, which evaluate precision guided munitions and other devices in electronic counter- and counter-countermeasures environments.
• 1963 NASA White Sands Test Facility's ground station for Tracking and Data Relay Satellites and the SDO ground station with 2 antennas.
• The North Oscura Peak facility of the AFRL Directed Energy Directorate

  Chronology

• 1930: Robert Goddard began rocket testing in New Mexico.
• 1941-04-13: US World War II preparations established the Army Air Base, Alamogordo: 1942 Biggs Army Airfield construction began near El Paso --the region's nearby Deming AAF, Ft Sumner AAF, and South Aux Fid #1 transferred to "Army Div Engrs" in 1946.
• 1940s: When the range was formed, ranchers' land was leased and, in the 1970s, taken permanently to expand the area available for testing.

  USAAF ranges

• 1941-12: Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range established near the "West Texas Bombardier Triangle".
• 1941-12: Executive Order No. 9029 canceled grazing leases on the newly established Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range.
• 1942-07: Goddard's rocket research group moved from Roswell, New Mexico, to Annapolis, Maryland.
• 1944-02: War Department and the Corps of Engineers' Ordnance Department teams looked for a US missile test site.
• 1945-07-13: McDonald Ranch House, Manhattan Project location for the final assembly of the prototype Fat Man plutonium bomb.
• 1945-07-16: Trinity test of the plutonium bomb, the first nuclear weapon tested in the world.

  White Sands Proving Ground

• 1945-02-20: The Secretary of War approved establishment of WSPG.
• 1945-04-01: The first Private F launch was at WSPG.
• 1945-06-25: WSPG construction began with drilling of water wells.
• 1945-07: First of 300 railroad cars of German V-2 components began to arrive at Las Cruces, New Mexico.
• 1945-09: The blockhouse at Army Launch Area 1 was completed.
• 1945-09-16: First WAC Corporal test firing.
• 1945-11: GE contractors began to identify, sort, and reassemble V-2 components in Building 1538.]
• 1946: 35 of the Operation Paperclip scientists from Germany were working at WSPG.
• 1946-05-26: The 4th U.S. V-2 launch was tracked by "two AN/MPQ-2 stations".
• 1946 summer: New WSPG quarters were completed and the Medical Detachment and 3 batteries moved from Ft Bliss.
• 1946-09: First static firing of a Nike missile was at WSPG.

  New Mexico Joint Guided Missile Test Range

• 1947 : A merging of military areas established the "New Mexico Joint Guided Missile Test Range".
• 1947-11-14: The USAF's Alamogordo Guided Missile Test Base on the range had its first GAPA missile launch.
• 1948-05 to 1949-4: First six flight attempts for the Project Bumper two-stage V-2 SRBM/WAC Corporal two-stage research vehicles as the world's first "high-speed" multistage rockets to be launched.
• 1948-07: USAF Project MX–774 commenced with the first RTV-A-2 Hiroc launch
• 1949-03: Holloman's 2754th Air Force Base unit gained "control of support airfield, Condron Field…from Biggs Army Air Field at Fort Bliss."
• 1949: German scientists transferred from New Mexico to Alabama ]
• 1949-07: The range's Four Bits Peak Instrumentation Annex was assigned to the AFB.
• 1951-07: The AGMTB became a sub-base of Florida's Air Force Missile Test Center until 31 August 1952.
• 1951-08-22: Broomstick Scientists in a unit of the 9393 Technical Service Unit conducted their first launch: the "TF-1" V-2 rocket.
• 1952-05: An additional was set aside for the "Alamogordo bombing range, White Sands proving ground, and the Fort Bliss antiaircraft range".
• 1952 : The joint range of more than was 2nd in area to the Eglin AFB range
• 1952-11: The range's Red Butte Instrumentation Annex was assigned to Holloman AFB.
• 1953-06: USS Desert Ship was built to test the Navy RIM-8 Talos missile.
• 1957-02: The 9393rd Technical Unit, Ordnance, became the U.S. Army Garrison.
• 1957-03-13: Nike Hercules satisfactory launch from LC37.

  White Sands Missile Range

• 1958-05-01: The test range was designated "White Sands Missile Range".
• 1958-09-02: The Gold Hill Instrumentation Annex was assigned to Holloman AFB.
• 1958-10: Zeus Acquisition Radar site construction at the planned Launch Complex 38 began near an airstrip.
• : The long-range GE AN/FPS-17 Fixed Ground Radar at the Laredo Test Site tracked its first WSMR rocket.
• 1959: Shavetail rocket tested.
• 1959: An Iconorama large screen display as used for Pentagon C² was installed at WSMR.
• 1963: President John F. Kennedy visited for the MEWS.
• 1962-03: Annual Service Practice was being conducted for Redstone missile crews.
• 1963-03: Site preparation began for the Multi-function Array Radar.
• 1963: Apollo program Launch Escape System tests with the Little Joe II began at White Sands Launch Complex 36.
• 1963-11: The Loma, Rose Park, & Twin Buttes instrumentation annexes transferred from Holloman AFB to the Army.
• 1964-07-08: The first "successful Athena/ABRES test missile fired from Utah into WSMR".
• 1965-11: first Sprint missile launch
• 1967: Operation Understanding civic leaders observed their local Nike crews perform Short Notice Annual Practice launches.
• 1967-10-21: Public Law 90-110 authorized $4,781,000 for WSMR construction.
• 1972: WSMR had 3 RCA AN/FPS-16 Instrumentation Radars
• 1983 thru 30 September 1993 - WSMR hosted the Simtel collection, the largest collection of free software and freeware available to the public on the ARPANET and Internet. It began as a copy of an MIT collection of CP/M software, and expanded to collect free software for other operating systems as well.
• 1991 : Convair QF-106 Delta Dart drones based at Holloman AFB began operating as Full-Scale Aerial Targets over WSMR.
• 1993-08-18: The first McDonnell Douglas DC-X flight was from the White Sands Space Harbor
• 2004: AIAA named the WSPG a Historic Aerospace Site.
• 2007-11-14: Launch Complex 32 groundbreaking for the Orion Abort Test Booster.
• 2011: A point in the Post Area was designated "White Sands Missile Range" in the USGS's Geographic Names Information System.