The Eastern Range (ER) is an American rocket range (

Spaceport A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word ''spaceport''—and even more so ''cosmodrome''—has traditionally referred to sites capable of ...

) that supports

missile A missile is an airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight aided usually by a propellant, jet engine or rocket motor. Historically, 'missile' referred to any projectile that is thrown, shot or propelled towards a target; this ...

and

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

launches from the two major launch heads located at

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the sta ...

and the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

(KSC),

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. The range has also supported Ariane launches from the

Guiana Space Centre The Guiana Space Centre (; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas region of France in South America. Kourou is located approxim ...

as well as launches from the

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately north-northeast of Norfolk, VA, Norfolk. The facility is operated ...

and other lead ranges. The range also uses instrumentation operated by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

at Wallops and KSC. The range can support launches between 37° and 114°

azimuth An azimuth (; from ) is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north, in a local or observer-centric spherical coordinate system. Mathematically, the relative position vector from an observer ( origin) to a point ...

. The headquarters of the range is now the Space Launch Delta 45 at

Patrick Space Force Base Patrick Space Force Base is a United States Space Force installation located between Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach, in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is named in honor of Major General Mason Patrick, United States Army Air Corps, ...

History

The history of the Eastern Range began on 18 October 1940, with the activation of the Naval Air Station Banana River which primarily supported antisubmarine patrol plane squadrons equipped with the

PBY Catalina The Consolidated Model 28, more commonly known as the PBY Catalina (U.S. Navy designation), is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft designed by Consolidated Aircraft in the 1930s and 1940s. In U.S. Army service, it was designated as the O ...

and

PBM Mariner The Martin PBM Mariner is a twin-engine American patrol bomber flying boat of World War II and the early Cold War era. It was designed to complement the Consolidated PBY Catalina and PB2Y Coronado in service. A total of 1,366 PBMs were built ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. NAS Banana River was deactivated and put into a caretaker status on 1 September 1947. Launches of captured German V-2 rockets had been ongoing since the end of World War II at

White Sands Proving Grounds 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 t ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, but it became clear that a much longer range away from heavily populated areas would be needed. The Joint Research and Development Board established the Committee on the Long Range Proving Ground in October 1946 to study locations for such a range, with three potential sites emerging: along the northern coast of

Washington state Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

with a range along the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain ...

;

El Centro, California El Centro ( Spanish for "The Center") is a city and county seat of Imperial County, California, United States. El Centro is the most populous city in the Imperial Valley, the east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core ...

, with a range along the Baja California Peninsula; and NAS Banana River with a launch site at

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

and a range over the

Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. ...

and into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. The Washington site was quickly discarded due to difficulties with support due to cold weather and remoteness. El Centro was put forth as the primary choice (due to being close to missile manufacturers) with the Cape as second choice. However, the El Centro site had to be abandoned after a wayward V-2 missile from White Sands crashed into a cemetery in Juarez,

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, leading to then Mexican President

Miguel Alemán Valdés Miguel Alemán Valdés (; 29 September 1900 – 14 May 1983) was a Mexican politician who served a full term as the President of Mexico from 1946 to 1952, the first civilian president after a string of revolutionary generals. His administ ...

refusing to allow missiles to overfly Baja. The U.S. Navy transferred NAS Banana River to the U.S. Air Force on 1 September 1948, and it remained on standby status. On 11 May 1949,

President Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th Vice president of the United States, vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Frank ...

signed Public Law 60 which established the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base. On 10 June 1949, the Banana River Naval Air Station was redesignated the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base and Advance Headquarters, Joint Long Range Proving Ground and the Air Force Division, Joint Long Range Proving Ground was established. On 16 May 1950 and 17 May 1950, range and base dropped the "Joint" in their names due to a DoD decision earlier in the year to put the range exclusively under U. S. Air Force jurisdiction. On 24 July 1950, Bumper #8 became the first missile to launch from the Cape Canaveral. TuckerValleyTrackingStation Trinidad

The Long Range Proving Ground Base was renamed Patrick Air Force Base on 1 August 1950, in honor of Major General Mason M. Patrick and the following year, on 30 June 1951, the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Division became the

Air Force Missile Test Center The Space Launch Delta 45 (SLD 45) is a unit of the United States Space Force. The Space Launch Delta 45 is assigned to Space Systems Command and headquartered at Patrick Space Force Base, Florida. The wing also controls Cape Canaveral Space Fo ...

and the Joint Long Range Proving Ground became the Florida Missile Test Range (FMTR). These would not be the only name changes for the range or the agency that controlled it. The Florida Missile Test Range was renamed the Atlantic Missile Range (AMR) in 1958 and the Eastern Test Range in 1964; the Air Force Missile Test Center was redesignated the Air Force Eastern Test Range (AFETR) in 1964, then control of the range was transferred to Detachment 1 of the Space and Missile Test Center located at

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg S ...

when AFETR was deactivated on 1 February 1977, which put both the Eastern and Western ranges under the same leadership. On 1 October 1979, control of the range passed to the newly activated Eastern Space and Missile Center (ESMC). The ESMC was transferred from

Air Force Systems Command The Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) is an inactive United States Air Force Major Command. It was established in April 1951, being split off from Air Materiel Command. The mission of AFSC was Research and Development for new weapons systems. AFS ...

Air Force Space Command An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere ...

on 10 October 1990; finally, on 12 November 1991, the 45th Space Wing was activated and assumed operational control for the range from ESMC; on the same day the Eastern Test Range became the Eastern Range. The transition on the west coast occurred one week later on 19 November 1991, when the Western Space and Missile Center became the 30th Space Wing and the

Western Test Range The Western Range (WR) is the space launch range that supports the rocket launch site, major launch head at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Managed by the Space Launch Delta 30, the WR extends from the West Coast of the United States to 90° ea ...

became the Western Range. In 2014,

Raytheon Technologies RTX Corporation, formerly Raytheon Technologies Corporation, is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by reve ...

won a contract to operate the Western and Eastern Ranges for the next 10 years through their subsidiary Range Generation Next. In February 2017,

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

's CRS-10 launch was the "first operational use" of the Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) on "either of

Eastern or Western Ranges". The following SpaceX flight, EchoStar 23 in March 2017, was the last SpaceX launch utilizing the historic system of ground radars, tracking computers, and personnel in launch bunkers that had been used for over sixty years for all launches from the Eastern Range. For all future SpaceX launches, AFSS has replaced "the ground-based mission flight control personnel and equipment with on-board Positioning, Navigation and Timing sources and decision logic. The benefits of AFSS include increased public safety, reduced reliance on range infrastructure, reduced range spacelift cost, increased schedule predictability and availability, operational flexibility, and launch slot flexibility". In 2017, the Eastern Range suffered two hurricanes which caused extensive damage and only allowed 19 launches that year.''As space launch business heats up in Florida, Air Force commander Wayne Monteith tries to break records'' February 2018
/ref> By 2017, the Eastern Range had upgraded their legacy operational processes and equipment to be able to support a much faster cadence of rocket launches for SpaceX AFTS-controlled rocket launches, but they did not use the capability when an opportunity arose to increase range launch cadence in October 2018. The first planned use of the more rapid cadence was in August 2019. , the range said that it could "support up to 48 launches per year from Florida" with an "eventual goal oget to a capability to launch two different rockets within 24 hours".

Launch statistics

By year: * 2016: 23 launches * 2017: 19 launches - 2 hurricanes * 2018: 34 scheduled * 2019: ? * 2020: ? * 2021: ? * 2022: 57 * 2023: 72 In early 2018, the plan was to get to 48 launches a year by about 2023.

Location

The range starts at the launch pads at

and

John F. Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

and extends eastward over the

to 90° East longitude in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

, where it meets the Western Range. The range consists of a chain of shore and sea-based tracking sites. "By January 1960, the Eastern Range included 13 major stations, approximately 91 outlying sites, a fleet of ships and three marine support stations. By September 1963, the Eastern Range extended around the tip of South Africa to the island of

Mahé, Seychelles Mahé is the largest island of Seychelles, with an area of , lying in the northeast of the Seychellois nation in the Somali Sea part of the Indian Ocean. The population of Mahé was 77,000, as of the 2010 census. It contains the capital city o ...

in the

". Much of the sea-based tracking and many of the land based stations have been replaced by space based tracking, including the present

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System The U.S. Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS, pronounced "T-driss") is a network of American communications satellites (each called a tracking and data relay satellite, TDRS) and ground stations used by NASA for space communications. ...

(TDRSS). Ground stations associated with the range are located at: *

, Florida * Jupiter Auxiliary Air Force Base, Florida: 1950s : Located in what is now Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area * Jonathan Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex (JDMTA): 1987–present : Located in the southern end of

Jonathan Dickinson State Park Jonathan Dickinson State Park is a Florida State Park, and historic site located in Martin County, Florida, between Hobe Sound and Tequesta. The park includes the Elsa Kimbell Environmental Education and Research Center and a variety of natur ...

* Antigua Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located on the former Coolidge Air Force Base, St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda : Now: Antigua Air Station *

Ascension Auxiliary Air Force Base Ascension or ascending may refer to: Religion * "Ascension", the belief in some religions that some individuals have ascended into Heaven without dying first. The Catholic concept of the Assumption of Mary leaves open the question of her deat ...

: Now: RAF Ascension Island *

Argentia, Newfoundland Argentia ( ) is a Canadian commercial seaport and industrial park located in the Town of Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. It is situated on the southwest coast of the Avalon Peninsula and defined by a triangular shaped headland which re ...

on the grounds of the decommissioned Argentia US Navy Facility (NAVFAC) which is manned on an "as needed" basis for northerly launches Major decommissioned stations associated with the range are located at: * Grand Bahama Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located near: Gold Rock Creek,

Grand Bahama Island Grand Bahama is the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas. It is the third largest island in the Bahamas island chain of approximately 700 islands and 2,400 cays. The island is roughly in area and approximately long west to east and at it ...

* Eleuthera Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located near: Governor's Harbor, Eleuthera Island, Bahamas * San Salvador Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located near: Cockburntown,

San Salvador Island San Salvador Island, previously Watling's Island, is an islands of the Bahamas, island and districts of The Bahamas, district of The Bahamas, famed for being the probable location of Christopher Columbus's first landing of the Americas on 12 Oc ...

, Bahamas * Mayaguana Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located near: Abraham's Bay, Mayaguana Island, Bahamas * Grand Turk Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located near: Cockburn Town,

Grand Turk Island Grand Turk is an island in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory, tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies. It is the largest island in the Turks Islands (the smaller of th ...

Turks and Caicos Islands The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and no ...

* Dominican Republic Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located near: Sabena de la Mar,

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...

* Mayaguez Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located near:

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico Mayagüez (, ) is the ninth-largest Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality in Puerto Rico. It was founded as Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez (Township of Virgin of Candelaria, Our Lady of Candelaria), and is also ...

* Saint Lucia Auxiliary Air Force Base : Located at the easternmost point of

Saint Lucia Saint Lucia is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. Part of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines), Saint Vincent ...

Airborne and sea-based tracking assets

The Missile Impact Location System (MILS) was established in the then Atlantic Missile Range (AMR) from 1958 through 1960. The system was developed by

American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to busi ...

(AT&T), with its

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the company operates several lab ...

research and

Western Electric Western Electric Co., Inc. was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that operated from 1869 to 1996. A subsidiary of the AT&T Corporation for most of its lifespan, Western Electric was the primary manufacturer, supplier, ...

manufacturing elements and was to an extent based on the company's technology and experience developing and deploying the U.S. Navy's then classified Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). The company and Navy assets that had installed the first phase of SOSUS, starting in 1951, were engaged on MILS installation and activation. Atlantic MILS target arrays, intended to precisely locate nose cone splashdown and then nose cone location on the bottom, were located down range from

about at

, at

Antigua Antigua ( ; ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the local population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the most populous island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua ...

and at

Ascension Island Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean. It is about from the coast of Africa and from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overs ...

. The range managed the fixed transponders for Sonobuoy MILS (SMILS), exclusively used by the United States Navy Strategic Systems Project Office supporting the Navy's fleet ballistic missile programs. Much of that system's exact details were classified. As recently as July 2007,

spacecraft such as

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the diffuse sky radiation, appearance of indirect sunlight being Rayleigh scattering, scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc ha ...

have depended upon the availability of airborne and sea-based tracking assets associated with the East Range to monitor launch and ascent.

References

External links