Naval Artillery Test Station
In the middle of World War II, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) needed adequate facilities to carry out rocket tests and evaluations. At the same time, the Navy needed a new testing ground for aviation weapons. Caltech's Charles C. Lauritsen and later U.S. Navy Commander Sherman E. Burroughs worked together to find a location that met both their needs.
In the early 1930s, the Works Progress Administration built an emergency landing field in the Mojave Desert, near the small town of Inyokern, California. Opened in 1935, the field was acquired in 1942 by the Army Air Forces. In November 1943 it was transferred to the Navy, which named China Lake the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS).
The mission of the Naval Ordnance Test Station was defined in a letter by the Secretary of the Navy as "....a station having as its primary function the research, development, and testing of weapons, and having the additional function of providing primary training in the use of such weapons." Testing began a month after the station was formally established. The vast, sparsely populated desert, along with its near-perfect flight weather and virtually unlimited visibility, proved to be an ideal location not only for test and evaluation activities, but also for a complete research and development establishment.
During 1944 the Naval Artillery Test Station worked on the development and experimentation of the 89mm, 127mm, HVAR and 298mm Tiny Tim rockets.[6]
Manhattan Project funds were used to build a new airfield at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, with three runways of 3,000 m, 2,300 m, and 2,700 m long, each 61 m wide to accommodate the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber. Fuel tanks with a capacity for 760,000 liters of gasoline and 76,000 liters of oil were provided. The airfield opened on June 1, 1945 and was named Armitage Field, in honor of Navy Lieutenant John Armitage, who died in August 1944 while testing a Tiny Tim rocket at the Naval Ordnance Test Station.[6][7][8].
The work done by Caltech at the Naval Ordnance Test Station for the Manhattan Project, particularly experimentation with the shapes of bombs dropped from B-29s, was included as part of the so-called program codenamed Project Camel.
In 1950, scientists and engineers at the Naval Ordnance Test Station developed the AIM-9 Sidewinder air intercept missile, which became the most widely used and replicated air-to-air missile in the world. Other rockets and missiles developed or tested at China Lake include the following: Mighty Mouse, Zuni "Zuni (rocket), Shrike, HARM, Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) and the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited the Naval Ordnance Test Station to watch an air show and see Michelson's laboratory.
Naval Air Weapons Station
In January 1992 the Naval Weapons Center and Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu were disbanded and joined with naval units at Kirtland Base in Albuquerque and White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, as a single command: the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) of the Naval Air Warfare Command. Systems (Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). At the same time, the physical plant at China Lake was designated as the Naval Air Weapons Station and became headquarters for the NAVAIR Weapons Division, performing base maintenance functions.
In 1982 the China Lake community area, including most of the base quarters, was annexed by the city of Ridgecrest (Ridgecrest, California). In 2013, Congress reserved the China Lake tract of land for military use for 25 more years.
In 2014, U.S. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California introduced a bill to permanently designate the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station property for military use, arguing it would save taxpayer money and enhance the base's mission. The bill would add 10,000 hectares, including approximately 3,000 hectares that were part of a San County gun range. Bernardino, as well as 7,700 hectares along the southwestern boundary of the station. The Bureau of Land Management said that the needs of the Department of Defense could change in the coming decades and that it is a popular recreation area for horseback riding, camping and hunting, it is also an important wildlife corridor, especially for the desert tortoise that has been classified as an "endangered" species.[9].
In July 2019, two large earthquakes hit Southern California; both had epicenters within the boundaries of Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. The first, on July 4, a magnitude 6.4 quake, caused no injuries at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, and initial reports showed all buildings were intact. The second, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake on July 5, resulted in the facility being assessed as "unviable for use." The report indicates that officials evaluated all buildings, public services and facilities (3,598 structures in total) for 13 days after the earthquakes and the damages found totaled $5.2 billion in losses. Replacing buildings alone would cost $2.2 billion, but officials also had to replace or repair specialized equipment, furniture, machining tools, telecommunications assets and other facilities.[10].