White Sands Missile Range.html



White Sands Missile Range (c1960) White Sands Proving Ground (1945) Alamogordo Bombing Range (1941)1
Part of United States Army
New Mexico, Southwestern United States
Outline of WSMR at the Tularosa Basin
Coordinates	32°56′38″N 106°25′10″W / 32.94389, -106.41944
Built	9 July 19452
Built by	Ordnance Corps (United States Army)2
Open to the public	WSMR Museum
Controlled by	Test Center Commander
Garrison	White Sands Missile Range Garrison
Current commander	BG Richard L. McCabe (2007- )
Commanders	Tom Berard, director (2005- ) BG Robert J. Reese ( -2005)
Occupants	NASA White Sands Test Facility AFRL Directed Energy Directorate at North Oscura Peak DoD Centers for Countermeasures3
WSMR location

White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a rocket range of almost 3,200 sq mi (8,300 km²) area, the largest military installation in the United States. WSMR includes the Oscura Range and the WSMR Otera Mesa bombing range.⁴ WSMR and the 600,000-acre Fort Bliss Range Complex'⁴ to the south form a contiguous swath of territory^{clarification needed} for military testing.^{citation needed}

External images
ATEC locations Missile Ranger newspaper Map with call-up areas

Current Operations

• Ground Support for the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) network of communications satellites system
• Solar Dynamics Observatory - SDO ground station consists of two dedicated (redundant) 18-meter radio antennas at White Sands.
• Orion Project Launch Abort Flight Test Complex
• Missile testing and range recovery operations⁵

Chronology

1944 February: Major General Gladeon M Barnes, chief of the Technical Division of the Office of Chief of Ordnance 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.^6:389
1945 February 20: The Secretary of War approved the establishment of White Sands Proving Ground.^{6:290 7:246}
1945 Spring: Private F test firing⁸
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.^7:246
1945 September 26-October 25: The first firing tests of the WAC-Corporal were carried out at the WSPG.^7:253
1946: 1st US V-2 rocket test (Hermes project, 1946)
1949: German rocket scientists of Operation Paperclip at WSPG and Fort Bliss moved to Redstone Arsenal.
1963-1966: Little Joe II Apollo program launch escape system tests at WSMR Launch Complex 36⁹
1982: STS-3 landed at WSMR
1983-1993: The Simtel shareware archive was hosted at WSMR on ARPANET
1985 October 3: White Sands V-2 Launching Site (Launch Complex 33) designated a National Historic Landmark.¹⁰¹¹
2004: The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics named the WSPG an Historic Aerospace Site.¹²
2004 May: Refurbished Mittelwerk V-2 rocket #FZ04/20919 returned to the WSMR Museum after being taken to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center 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.¹³

In Popular Culture

In the movie SpaceCamp, shuttle Atlantis is forced to land at WSMR, and in the novel Fire on the Mountain, WSMR is included in the story. The range's desert setting was used during the filming of the 2007 film Transformers as a substitute for the Middle-Eastern nation of Qatar.^{citation needed}

1982 Space Shuttle Columbia landing at Northrup Strip

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Category:White Sands Missile Range

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Category:White Sands Missile Range Museum

External Links

• Official Site

References and Notes

1. ^ "Chapter Four: Global War at White Sands 1940-1945" (html). White Sands Administrative History. National Park Service. Retrieved on 2008-10-07. "Executive Order No. 9029"
2. ^ ^{a b} "Development of the Corporal: the embryo of the army missile program, vol. 2". Army Ballistic Missile Agency.
3. ^ NOTE: The Center for Countermeasures (CCM), founded 1972, is a joint program of the OSD's Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E), which is itself a component of the OSD (OSD). The CCM evaluates precision guided munitions and other devices in counter- and counter-countermeasures environments.
4. ^ ^{a b} Rubenson, David (1998). McGregor Renewal and the Current Air Defense Mission. p. p77. ISBN 9780833026699, http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA76&lpg=PA77&dq=%22oscura+range%22&sig=ACfU3U23XQxVEVy1KwqBGxtItIwAm1vfoA&id=nJlnO6Prw5AC&ots=Ibl4fenRK5#PPA79,M1. Retrieved on 15 September 2008. 
5. ^ "Time Magazine, "Recovery at White Sands"".
6. ^ ^{a b} Ordway, Frederick I, III; Sharpe, Mitchell R (1979). The Rocket Team. Apogee Books Space Series 36. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. pp. p290. ISBN 1894959000. 
7. ^ ^{a b c} Ley, Willy (1951 - revised edition 1958). Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel. New York: The Viking Press. pp. p246,253. 
8. ^ Bluth, John. "Von Karman, Malina laid the groundwork for the future JPL". JPL.
9. ^ "WSTF Community". NASA.
10. ^ "White Sands V-2 Launching Site" (html). Retrieved on 2008-10-07.
11. ^ Works by White Sands Missile Range Public Affairs Office at Project Gutenberg
12. ^ "article" (October 2004), p. B6. 
13. ^ "NASA Building Test Pad at White Sands for New Spacecraft" (html). redOrbit (3 February 2008). Retrieved on 2008-09-12.