![]() New Mexico Joint Guided Missile Test Range (1947) White Sands Proving Ground (1945) Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range (1941)[2] | |
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Part of United States Army Test and Evaluation Command | |
Located in the San Andres Mountains, the Oscura Mountains, the San Augustin Mountains, the Tularosa Basin, and the Chupadera Mesa in New Mexico | |
![]() Most of the northern Tularosa Basin (blue) is used for the WSMR (area within dashed perimeter), which encloses numerous areas that are not military land (e.g., the NPS's White Sands National Park), as well as United States Air Force facilities. | |
![]() WSMR location | |
Coordinates | 32°20′08″N 106°24′21″W / 32.33556°N 106.40583°W[3] Condron Army Airfield near the southernmost WSMR point |
Site information | |
Controlled by | United States Army |
Website | www |
Site history | |
Built | 1948-07-09 cantonment completed[4] 1957-02: Launch Complex 37 completed |
Built by | Ordnance Corps[4] |
Garrison information | |
Current commander | BG Eric D. Little (2021–present)[5] |
Past commanders |
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White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established in 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, where the Trinity test site lay at the northern end of the Range, in Socorro County near the towns of Carrizozo and San Antonio. It then became the White Sands Proving Ground on 9 July 1945.
White Sands National Park founded in the 1930s is located within the range.
For the geography and ecology of the WSMR area, see White Sands, New Mexico and Basin and Range Province. |
As the largest military installation in the United States, WSMR encompasses almost 3,200 sq mi (8,300 km2) including parts of Doña Ana, Otero, Socorro, Sierra, and Lincoln counties in southern New Mexico.
Holloman Air Force Base borders WSMR to the east; and WSMR borders the 600,000-acre (2,400 km2) McGregor Range Complex at Fort Bliss to the south (southeast Tularosa Basin and on Otero Mesa) making them contiguous areas for military testing.[13][14]
WSMR is located between Las Cruces, New Mexico to the west, Alamogordo, New Mexico 40 miles to the east, and Chaparral, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas to the south.
White Sands National Park and the San Andres National Wildlife Refuge are federally-protected natural areas contained within the borders of WSMR.
New Mexico State Road 213 enters the range from the south from Chaparral, New Mexico and terminates at U.S. Highway 70, which 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.
El Paso International Airport is the nearest airport with regularly scheduled commercial flights. There have been no regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights from Las Cruces International Airport since 25 July 2005, when Westward Airways ceased operations; although General aviation, New Mexico Army National Guard (4 UH-72 Lakota Helicopters), private charters and CAP, among others, still use the airport.
On 21 December 1965, the Trinity Site, selected in November 1944 for the Trinity nuclear test conducted on 16 July 1945[15], was designated a National Historic Landmark district,[16][17] and added to the National Register of Historic Places on 15 October 1966.[18]
The White Sands Test Center, headquartered at the WSMR post area, has branches for manned tactical systems and electromagnetic radiation, and conducts missile testing and range recovery operations.[20] "WSMR Main Post" includes several smaller areas such as the housing area, golf course, "Navy Area", and "Technical Area"[21] The WSMR Museum offers tours and exhibits including a V-2 rocket returned in May 2004 after restoration. The White Sands Missile Range Hall of Fame inducts members such as the first range commander, Colonel Harold Turner (1945–1947), in 1980.[22] A recreational shooting range just inside the "El Paso gate" on the south is outside of the Post Area.
The 1972 DoD Centers for Countermeasures (CCM) evaluates precision guided munitions and other devices in electronic counter- and counter-countermeasures environments.[23] Other operations on WSMR land include the Launch Abort Flight Test Complex for the Pad Abort-1, the White Sands Launch Complex 37 built for Nike Hercules tests, the White Sands Launch Complex 38 built for Nike Zeus tests with Launch Control Building now used for Patriot missile firings, the North Oscura Peak facility of the Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate, and the 1963 NASA White Sands Test Facility's ground station for Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, and the SDO ground station with two 18 m (59 ft) antennas.
For additional events (e.g., USAF launches) at sites not on WSPG but that later became part of WSMR, see Air Force Missile Development Center. |
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Las Cruces Public Schools operates White Sands School on the missile range property.[68]