The Churchill Rocket Research Range is a Canadian former

rocket launch site This article constitutes a list of rocket launch sites. Some of these sites are known as spaceports or cosmodromes. A single rocket launch is sufficient for inclusion in the table, as long as the site is properly documented through a reference. M ...

located outside

Churchill, Manitoba Churchill is a subarctic port town in northern Manitoba, Canada, on the west shore of Hudson Bay, roughly from the Manitoba–Nunavut border. It is most famous for the many polar bears that move toward the shore from inland in the autumn, leadi ...

. The facility was used by Canada and the United States beginning in 1954 for sub-orbital launches of

sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are often ...

s to study the upper atmosphere. The site was scientifically beneficial due to lying in the center of a zone containing high aurora activity. Over 3,500 sub-orbital flights were launched from the site. The site is sometimes referred to as Fort Churchill after the nearby former military base (now

Churchill Airport Churchill Airport is located east-southeast of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. The airport serves the town of Churchill and the surrounding region. Although it is a small domestic airport, it handles a relatively high number of passengers throu ...

) and is connected by an all-weather gravel road to the town of Churchill.

History

Rocket launch Churchill Manitoba circa 1965 07

The complex was first built in 1954 by the

Canadian Army The Canadian Army () is the command (military formation), command responsible for the operational readiness of the conventional ground forces of the Canadian Armed Forces. It maintains regular forces units at bases across Canada, and is also re ...

Defence Research Board Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC; , ''RDDC'') is the science and technology organization of the Department of National Defence (DND), whose purpose is to provide the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), other government departments, and public ...

to study the effects of

auroras An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

on long distance communications. The programme shut down in 1955, but the site was re-opened and greatly expanded in 1956 as part of

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

's participation in the

International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War w ...

. Launches for the IGY experiments started in 1957, and the site was closed again in December 1958 when the IGY, which was actually two years long, ended. The site was reopened again in August 1959 by the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

, in collaboration with the Canadian government, as part of its network of sounding rocket stations. In September 1959 it was used to test CARDE's new

solid fuel Solid fuel refers to various forms of solid material that can be burnt to release energy, providing heat and light through the process of combustion. Solid fuels can be contrasted with liquid fuels and gaseous fuels. Common examples of solid fu ...

propellant systems with PVT-1, the vehicle that would evolve into the

Black Brant The brant or brent goose (''Branta bernicla'') is a small goose of the genus ''Branta''. There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra. The Brent oilfield was named after t ...

. However, in late 1960 a fire destroyed many of the facilities. It was announced that the Black Brant test series would be continued with an additional twelve launches at

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 ...

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 ...

during 1961-62, while the facilities at Churchill were rebuilt. The US Army ended its involvement at Churchill in June 1970, and the site was taken over by the Canadian National Research Council to support the Canadian Upper Atmosphere Research Program. The site was used sporadically during the 1970s and 1980s, and was largely deserted by 1985.

SpacePort Canada: 1994-1998

Akjuit Aerospace, a Canadian company founded in 1992, signed a 30-year lease with the Canadian government for the Churchill Rocket Research Range in 1994 with the goal of developing the world's first commercial spaceport. Akjuit assembled a "technical team" of 21 firms led by the American aerospace contractor

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

to plan the development of the site into SpacePort Canada, including

polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of abo ...

al launch capability. Akjuit planned to launch commercial polar-orbiting payloads using

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n-made

Start-1 Start-1 is a Russian satellite launch vehicle based on the RT-2PM Topol, a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile developed by Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology. History The Start-1 launch vehicle derives its name from the Strategi ...

rockets (so named as they were made of repurposed

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

-era SS-25

ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

s made redundant by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). Churchill's location in the western hemisphere combined with its range-safety for firing northwards made it an ideal location, with the exception of the extremely cold weather which would limit launch seasons. Akjuit's first and only rocket launch took place at 7:10a.m. Central Time on April 28, 1998: a suborbital Black Brant IXB research rocket containing a physics payload for the

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; ) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The President of the Canadian Space Agency, president is Lisa Campbell (civil servant), Lisa Campbell, who took ...

. Akjuit Aerospace ceased operations in May 1998.

Current uses

The site is no longer used for rocket launches and is currently the location of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, a non-profit and multi-disciplinary research facility that is also open for

educational tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity on ...

References

External links

Astronautix
{{authority control 1954 establishments in Manitoba 1998 disestablishments in Manitoba Buildings and structures on the National Historic Sites of Canada register Military research installations of Canada National Historic Sites in Manitoba National Research Council (Canada) Rocket launch sites in Canada Space program of Canada Spaceports Former research facilities of the United States Army Buildings and structures in Churchill, Manitoba Science and technology in Manitoba