VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE
Vandenberg Air Force Base is located on the Central Coast of California, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles. It is operated by the 30th Space Wing and reports directly to the 14th Air Force, also located at Vandenberg. The 14th Air Force is home to the Joint Functional Component Command for Space and the Joint Space Operations Center. These functions consolidate operational command and control of joint space forces. Both the 30th Space Wing and the 14th Air Force are elements of Air Force Space Command, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The base is the only military installation in the United States from which unmanned government and commercial satellites are launched into polar orbit. It's also the only site from which unarmed intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched toward the Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands, to verify the accuracy and reliability of our nation's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) fleet.

STARTED AS AN ARMY CAMP
Vandenberg's military service dates back to October 1941 when it was officially activated as Camp Cooke after Major General Philip St. George Cooke. A West Point graduate, General Cooke participated in the war with Mexico in 1846, the Indian Wars, and in the Civil War as a colonel in the Union Army. The base served as an Army training post for armored and infantry troops preparing for combat against Axis forces in Europe and the PaciVc. By 1943, some 36,000 troops were stationed at Cooke. A year later, a German prisoner of war camp was added to the post. Following the conclusion of the war, Camp Cooke was closed, but was reactivated in February 1950 for two-and-a-half years during the Korean War.

AIR FORCE TAKES CHARGE
With the advent of the missile age in the 1950s, approximately 64,000 acres of the abandoned Camp Cooke were transferred to the Air Force for use as a missile-training base. Its remote location and proximity to the coast offered a perfect setting for safely launching intermediate range ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles to targets in the PaciVc Ocean. These same geographic features were also ideal for launching satellites into polar orbit without overflight of populated landmasses. Construction of the missile base began on May 9, 1957 at the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union. Gradually, missile launch complexes appeared as tons of concrete and steel transformed the landscape.

A parallel program of renovating old structures was also in bloom in 1957. The first recruits started moving into the base in late April of that year. On Oct. 4, 1958, Cooke AFB was renamed Vandenberg AFB in honor of the late General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, the Air Force's second Chief of Staff.

ROCKET AND MISSILE SYSTEMS
The first missile to be launched from Vandenberg AFB was a Thor IRBM on Dec. 16, 1958.

Two months later, on Feb. 28, 1959, the world's first polar orbiting satellite, Discoverer I, lifted into space aboard a Thor/Agena rocket. Discoverer was the cover name for America's first reconnaissance satellite program called Corona.

The Atlas launch vehicle made its debut West Coast Wight on Sept. 9, 1959. The following month, equipped with a nuclear warhead, the Atlas at Vandenberg became the first ICBM to be placed on alert in the United States. The vehicle and its warhead were removed in the early 1960s. In 1961, the Titan I entered the inventory at Vandenberg, but a more advanced version with storable propellants, all inertial guidance, and insilo launch capability—the Titan II—was already in the process of development. More importantly, the solid-propellant, three-stage Minuteman ICBM was under development and began Wight tests at Vandenberg in September 1962.

Other launch vehicles have since followed, including the Peacekeeper (MX) ICBM beginning in June 1983, the Titan IV space booster in March 1991, the Taurus space booster in March 1994, the air-launched Pegasus booster in April 1995, the Delta II commercial booster in February 1996, and the Atlas IIAS in December 1999. By far, the most ambitious Air Force endeavors at Vandenberg were the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and the Space Shuttle programs. Construction work for MOL began at Space Launch Complex 6 in March 1966. Three years later, in June 1969, the project was canceled by President Richard Nixon.

After nearly a decade of abandonment, SLC-6 was reactivated and underwent an estimated $4 billion modification program in preparation for the Space Shuttle, beginning in January 1979. Persistent site technical problems and a joint decision by the Air Force and NASA to consolidate Shuttle operations at Cape Canaveral in Florida, following the Challenger tragedy in 1986, resulted in placing the launch site into caretaker status. Later, on Dec. 26, 1989, the Shuttle program was terminated at Vandenberg. Today, SLC-6 has undergone modifications by Boeing Company for its Delta IV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle. The first West Coast launch was July 2006.

LAND ACQUISITIONS
Meanwhile, after the Air Force had acquired the northern part of Camp Cooke from the Army in 1957, the surplus southern portion of the former camp, encompassing over 19,800 acres, was transferred to the U.S. Navy in May 1958. The Navy subsequently established a Pacific Missile Range with headquarters at Point Mugu and instrumentation sites along the California coast and at various islands in the Pacific. The land acquired from Camp Cooke became the Naval Missile Facility at Point Arguello, a major launch head and range safety center for all ballistic missile and satellite launch operations conducted within the PMR.

In November 1963, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara directed the Navy to transfer responsibility for the PMR, including ownership of the Point Arguello launch facility, to the Air Force. The purpose of the order was to consolidate range assets and to improve management operations.

Point Arguello was transferred to the Air Force on July 1, 1964. Seven months later, on Feb. 1, 1965, responsibility for the range also transferred to the Air Force. Today, the former PMR is known as the Western Range. It consists of instrumentation sites along the California coast and down range in the Hawaiian Islands. Additionally, instrumentation support is obtained from the Navy at San Nicholas Island and Point Mugu in California, and the Army at the Kwajalein Atoll. The last land addition to Vandenberg was obtained by the Air Force through the use of eminent domain in March 1966 (finalized in December 1968). Almost 15,000 acres of Sudden Ranch property was annexed to south Vandenberg in support of its MOL program. The annexation increased the size of the base—recently recalculated to 99,400 acres.

Today, the mission of the 30th Space Wing is to 1) conduct and support spacelift operations, 2) support Wight tests of the nation's intercontinental ballistic missile force, 3) operate the Western Range instrumentation network for government and commercial space, missile, and aeronautical operations, and 4) provide host base support services to the Vandenberg AFB community.