History:
On July 6, 1962, NASA Headquarters announced the site selection for the Johnson Space Center’s Propulsion Systems Development Facility. The name of the site was changed to White Sands Operations and renamed again in June 1965 to the White Sands Test Facility. Our site was chosen for its isolated location and topography to minimize the inherent hazards of aerospace propulsion testing to the general population. Located east of Las Cruces, New Mexico, the 28 square miles of controlled access, remote property was an ideal setting for testing. The U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range also adjoins the mountain range, creating a federally protected corridor of public safety and limited access.
The primary mission of the new site was to test rocket propulsion systems for the Apollo spacecraft (Command/Service Module and Lunar Module). Construction began in May of 1963 and the first test firing of the 20,000 lb thrust rocket engine for the Apollo Service Module was conducted on September 22, 1964. Since this first engine firing, we have tested over 700 rocket engines in more than 4 million firings and counting.
