NAVAL AIR WEAPONS STATION CHINA LAKE
1.1 million acres of California desert — the Navy's premier weapons R&D and test range.
OVERVIEW
Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake is the U.S. Navy's premier weapons research, development, test, and evaluation installation, occupying about 1.1 million acres of high-desert terrain in eastern Kern County, California. The installation is the single largest landholding in the U.S. Department of the Navy — larger than the state of Rhode Island — and it provides the immense, sparsely populated land and airspace required for safe live-fire weapons development, testing, and aircrew training. About 4,000 active-duty military, Department of the Navy civilians, and thousands of additional contractors work at China Lake.
The host command is Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD), which performs the Navy's full life-cycle research, development, test, and evaluation for air-launched weapons, sensors, and integrated weapons systems. China Lake's resident operational test squadron, VX-9 "Vampires," conducts operational test and evaluation for new and modified F/A-18, F-35, EA-18G, AV-8B, and rotary-wing weapons systems before they enter fleet service. The base's Range Department operates a vast network of instrumented land and airspace ranges — including the R-2508 Complex of restricted airspace shared with Edwards Air Force Base and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center — that together form one of the largest, most heavily instrumented military test environments in the world. Generations of iconic Navy and joint weapons — Sidewinder, Walleye, Shrike, HARM, AMRAAM, JDAM, JSOW, and many more — were developed, tested, or refined at China Lake.
KEY FACTS
- MissionPremier U.S. Navy weapons research, development, test, and evaluation site
- Land AreaAbout 1.1 million acres — larger than the state of Rhode Island
- Test RangesLargest single landholding in the U.S. Department of the Navy
- Notable ProgramsSidewinder, Walleye, Shrike, HARM, JDAM, JSOW, AMRAAM (test/evaluation)
- Restricted AirspaceR-2508 Complex — among the largest restricted airspace in the U.S.
HISTORY
Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake was established in November 1943 as the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) Inyokern in response to a wartime need for a remote, unrestricted facility where the Navy could develop and test the new generation of unguided rockets and air-launched weapons being designed for the Pacific war. The Navy partnered with the California Institute of Technology, which had been developing aircraft rockets at its Pasadena and Goldstone facilities, and selected the Indian Wells Valley site in the high Mojave Desert for its remote location, sparse population, year-round flying weather, and abundant available land.
Through the closing years of World War II, NOTS Inyokern played a crucial role in maturing the FFAR, HVAR, and Tiny Tim aircraft rockets that gave Navy and Marine Corps fighters their close air support firepower in the final Pacific campaigns. After the war, the Navy retained NOTS as a permanent installation, recognizing that the unique combination of land, airspace, and instrumentation could not be replicated elsewhere. In 1948 the station was renamed China Lake after the dry lake bed at its center, and the post-war years saw NOTS expand into a full-spectrum naval weapons research center.
China Lake's most enduring contribution to naval aviation began in the early 1950s, when a team led by NOTS physicist William B. McLean developed the AIM-9 Sidewinder — the first practical, low-cost, infrared-guided air-to-air missile. The Sidewinder, which scored its first test kill in 1953, became one of the most important air-to-air weapons in history and was followed by a succession of China Lake–developed weapons including the Walleye glide bomb, Shrike anti-radiation missile, AGM-65 Maverick (Navy variants), and the AGM-88 HARM. The base also became the proving ground for joint and partner-nation weapons including the AMRAAM, JDAM, and Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) families.
The 1990s saw a consolidation of Navy weapons R&D under a smaller number of major sites. The Naval Weapons Center (the post-1967 name for NOTS) merged with several other Navy laboratories to form the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) in 1992, headquartered at China Lake with major detachments at NAS Point Mugu (now part of Naval Base Ventura County). The host installation was simultaneously renamed Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake to reflect the broader integrated weapons mission. In July 2019 a magnitude 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake — among the largest in southern California in recent decades — caused significant infrastructure damage at the base, and a multi-year recapitalization program is rebuilding affected facilities. China Lake remains the operational and intellectual center of the Navy's air-launched weapons enterprise.
MAJOR COMMANDS & TENANT UNITS
- Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) headquarters
- Naval Test Wing Pacific
- VX-9 "Vampires" — Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron NINE
- Range Department (China Lake test ranges)
- Resident Air Force, Marine Corps, and joint test detachments
LOCATION & GEOGRAPHY
NOTABLE EVENTS
- 1943Naval Ordnance Test StationNaval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) Inyokern established in the high desert to test rocket weapons developed by Caltech for the WWII Pacific war.
- 1953Sidewinder First FlightAIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile, developed at China Lake by William B. McLean and team, first scored a kill in test flight.
- 1992NAWS China LakeNOTS, NWC, and Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division consolidated under the modern Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake designation.