Mojave Spaceport

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Mojave Spaceport

IATA: MHV - ICAO: KMHV
Summary
Airport type		Public
Operator		Kern County
Serves		Mojave, California
Elevation AMSL		2,791 ft (851 m)
Coordinates		35°03′34″N, 118°09′06″W
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	ft	m	Surface
12/30	9,502	2,896	Asphalt/Concrete
8/26	7,050	2,149	Asphalt
4/22	4,743	1,446	Asphalt

Aerial photo courtesy of NASA World Wind.

Mojave Airport, storage location for commercial airliners.

The Mojave Spaceport (IATA: MHV, ICAO: KMHV) , also known as the Mojave Airport and Civilian Aerospace Test Center, is located in Mojave, California, at an elevation of 2,791 feet. It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the Federal Aviation Administration on June 17, 2004. However only the SpaceShipOne craft has attained sub-orbital altitude, reaching the edge of space (100km).

1 Activities
2 History
3 First flights and significant events
4 Movie/television location credits
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Activities

Besides being a general-use public airport, Mojave has three main areas of activity, flight testing, space industry development, and aircraft heavy maintenacne and storage.

[edit] Flight testing

Flight testing activities have been centered at Mojave since the early 1970s, due to the lack of populated areas surrounding the airport. It is also favored for this purpose due to its proximity to the Edwards Air Force Base, where the airspace is restricted from ground level to an unlimited height, and where there is a supersonic corridor. Mojave is also the home of the National Test Pilot School

[edit] Space industry development

Beginning with the Rotary Rocket program, Mojave became a focus for small companies seeking a place to develop space access technologies. Mojave Spaceport has been a test site for several teams in the Ansari X Prize, most notably SpaceShipOne. The "spacecraft" performed the first privately funded human sub-orbital flight on June 21, 2004. Other groups based at the Mojave Spaceport include XCOR Aerospace, Orbital Sciences Corporation, and Interorbital Systems.

[edit] Aircraft heavy maintenance and storage

The Mojave airport is also known as a storage location for commercial airliners. Numerous large Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, and Airbus aircraft owned by major airlines are stored at Mojave. Some aircraft reach the end of their useful lifetime and are scrapped at Mojave, while others are refurbished and returned to active service.

[edit] History

The Mojave Airport was first opened in 1935 as a small, rural airfield serving the local gold and silver mining industry.

In July, 1942, the U.S. Marine Corps took over the field and vastly expanded it as the Marine Corps Auxiliary Air Station (MCAAS) Mojave. Many of the Corps' WWII aces received their gunnery training at Mojave. With the end of WWII, MCAAS was disestablished in 1946, and became instead a U.S. Navy airfield. At the end of 1953, the USMC reopened MCAAS Mojave as an auxiliary field to MCAS El Toro.

In 1961, after the USMC transferred operations to MCAS El Centro, Kern County obtained title to the airport. In February, 1972, the East Kern Airport District was formed to administrate the airport; EKAD maintains the airport to this day.

[edit] First flights and significant events

July 1, 1942 - Construction begins on Marine Corps Auxiliary Air Station at Mojave.^[1]
July 31, 1944 - USMC Capt. Edward Shaw, a decorated WWII ace, was killed while test-flying an F-8U Corsair^[2]^[3]
February 7, 1946 - MCAAS disestablished.^[1]
December 31, 1953 - MCAAS Mojave re-established.^[1]
May 21, 1975 - First flight of the Rutan VariEze
June 30, 1978 - First flight of the Rutan Defiant
June 12, 1979 - First flight of the prototype of the Rutan Long-EZ
April 3, 1980 - First prototype Bombardier Challenger 600 crashed in the Mojave desert, killing one of the pilots; flight test program was operating from Mojave at the time.
September 25, 1981 - National Test Pilot School opens
August 23, 1983 - First flight of the Boeing Skyfox
August 29, 1983 - First flight of Beech/Scaled Composites Model 115 Starship
January 7, 1986 - Voyager homecoming, after round-the-world record flight.^[4]
July 12, 1988 - First flight of the Scaled Composites Triumph
February 19, 1990 - First flight of the Scaled Composites ARES
July 26, 1998 - First flight of the Scaled Composites Proteus
March 1, 1999 - Rollout of the Rotary Rocket Roton ATV.
July 28, 1999 - First flight of the Roton ATV.
October 12, 1999 - third, final and longest flight of Roton ATV.
October 8, 2000 - First firing of an XCOR Aerospace LOX-powered rocket engine.^[5]
July 21, 2001 - First flight of the XCOR EZ-Rocket, flown by Dick Rutan (single-engine configuration).^[5]
October 6, 2001 - First flight of a twin engine rocket plane, again the XCOR EZ-rocket.^[5]
May 31, 2002 - First flight of the Toyota TAA-1, built by Scaled Composites.^[6]
July 24, 2002 - First touch-and-go of a rocket powered aircraft, the XCOR EZ-Rocket (world record).^[5]
August 1, 2002 - First flight of Scaled Composites White Knight
September 18, 2002 - First flight of world's largest jet engine, GE90-115B on GE's Boeing 747 testbed aircraft.^[6]
May 20, 2003 - First captive flight, unmanned, of SpaceShipOne
July 29, 2003 - First manned captive flight of SpaceShipOne
August 7, 2003 - First free-flight of SpaceShipOne
December 17, 2003 - First powered flight of SpaceShipOne, on 100th anniversary of powered flight by the Wright Brothers.
March 5, 2004 - First flight of the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer^[7]
June 17, 2004 - Mojave designated a Spaceport by the FAA.
June 21, 2004 - First sub-orbital flight of SpaceShipOne
September 29, 2004 - First Ansari X Prize flight of SpaceShipOne
October 4, 2004 - X-Prize-winning flight of SpaceShipOne
June 21, 2005 - First captive flight of Boeing X-37 under Scaled Composites White Knight
December 3, 2005 - First departure of a rocket-powered aircraft on a point-to-point flight (XCOR EZ-Rocket, departed MHV for California City, flown by Dick Rutan).^[8]
December 15, 2005 - First arrival of a rocket-powered aircraft on a flight originating at another airport (XCOR EZ-Rocket return flight from California City, piloted by Rick Searfoss).^[8]
April 7, 2006 - First free flight of Boeing X-37 (take-off from Mojave, landing at Edwards)

[edit] Movie/television location credits

Due to the Mojave Spaceport's unique location and facilities, a number of movies, TV shows and commercials have been filmed on location here. The Airport Administration actively promotes the facility as a set. The airport has facilities dedicated for filming, a large supply of aircraft to use as props and two large film pads that can be flooded for water scenes. Action movies and car commercials make up the bulk of the filming at the airport.

Movie credits include:

Die Hard 2
Dragnet
Executive Decision
Flags of our Fathers
Flight Plan
Hot Shots
MacArthur
The Rookie
Spartan
Speed (Specifically, the exploding airliner)
S.W.A.T.
Thirteen Days
Tuskegee Airmen
Waterworld

TV Show credits include:

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b ^c Hansen, Cathy, Settle, Glen A. (1996). Mojave: A Rich History of Rails, Flight, Mining. Kern-Antelope Historical Society.
^ Edward Shaw - VMF-213. Retrieved on 2006-11-16.
^ AIRCRAFT WRECKS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. Retrieved on 2006-11-16.
^ Mojave Airport: Voyager. Mojave Virtual Museum. Retrieved on 2006-11-16.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d First Flights - XCOR Aerospace. Mojave Virtual Museum. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
^ ^a ^b Mojave First Flights. Mojave Virtual Museum. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
^ Virgin's GlobalFlyer Makes Successful First Flight!. Mojave Airport Weblog. Retrieved on 2006-11-16.
^ ^a ^b Deaver, Bill. "XCOR EZ-Rocket makes more history at CalCity", Mojave Desert News, 2005-12-22. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.