Western Range (USSF)

This article focuses only on one specialized aspect of the subject. Please help improve this article by adding general information and discuss at the talk page. (July 2013)

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The Western Range (WR)

The Navy established the Naval Missile Facility at Point Arguello (NMFPA) after the transfer from the Army of 19,800 acres from the southern portion of Camp Cooke in May 1958. Camp Cooke was a World War II training and POW facility and a maximum security Disciplinary Barracks site.[6] Cooke Air Force Base, later Vandenberg Space Force Base, was established on 64,000 acres of the northern portion.^[6] The Secretary of Defense directed the Navy to establish the Pacific Missile Range (PMR) with headquarters at Point Mugu and instrumentation sites along the California coast and downrange in the Pacific Ocean.^[6] Agreements between the Navy and the Air Force specified that nearly all launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base were under the command and control of Navy and the PMR.^[6]

A Pacific

• 28 February 1959 - Discoverer 1 - first spacecraft placed in a polar orbit.^[6][9]

• 29 September 2013 –
  separates from the booster, the booster will do a retro burn to reduce velocity from approximately Mach 10 (12,300 km/h; 7,610 mph) to a controllable descent velocity, and then a second burn just before it reaches the water to simulate a vertical landing of the first stage.^[11] This will be the first high-altitude, high-velocity test of the SpaceX reusable launch system development program
  .

• Eastern Range
• Missile Range Instrumentation Ship

References

Bibliography