China Lake is a
dry lake. Its name comes from Chinese
prospectors harvesting
borax from the lake bed, approximately south of
Paxton Ranch. The operation was known locally as "The Little Chinese Borax Works".
Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) Amid
World War II, adequate facilities were needed by the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for test and evaluation of rockets. At the same time, the Navy needed a new proving ground for
aviation ordnance. Caltech's
Charles C. Lauritsen and then U.S. Navy Commander
Sherman E. Burroughs worked together to find a site that would meet both their needs. In the early 1930s, an emergency landing field had been built by the
Works Progress Administration in the
Mojave Desert near the small town of Inyokern, California. Opened in 1935, the field was acquired by the
United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) in 1942. In November 1943, it was transferred to the Navy, which established China Lake as the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS). The NOTS mission was defined in a letter by the
Secretary of the Navy as ".... a station having for its primary function the research, development, and testing of weapons, and having an additional function of furnishing primary training in the use of such weapons." Testing began within a month of the Station's formal establishment. The vast and sparsely populated desert, with near-perfect flying weather and practically unlimited visibility, proved an ideal location for test and evaluation activities and a complete research and development establishment. During 1944, NOTS worked on the development and testing of the
3.5-inch,
5-inch,
HVAR and
11.75-inch (Tiny Tim) rockets. Work done by Caltech at NOTS for the Manhattan Project - particularly the testing of bomb shapes dropped from B-29s - was included as part of codename
Project Camel. In 1950, NOTS scientists and engineers developed the air-intercept missile (AIM) 9
Sidewinder, which became the world's most used and most copied air-to-air missile. Other rockets and missiles developed or tested at China Lake include the
Mighty Mouse,
Zuni,
Shrike,
HARM,
Joint Stand-Off Weapon (JSOW) and
Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). The two
Randsburg Wash Target Test Towers (Buildings 70021 and 70022) situated at are significant for their role in the naval testing of proximity or variable time (VT) fuzes, a vital element of the U.S. Navy's weapons program. The towers played a key role in the Cold War proximity fuze test program at the U.S. Navy's Randsburg Wash facility, a program that eventually led to the Navy adapting the use of these fuzes to guided missiles. The towers are important on a national level during the period of significance between 1952 and 1960; the years in which the most important achievements in the U.S. Navy's developments of the properties and attributes of proximity fuzes. The towers are also significant for their unique engineering achievement, as 360 foot-tall, pyramidal wood towers. Targets are suspended between the two towers. In June 1963, President
John F. Kennedy visited NAWS China Lake for an air show and to see the Michelson Lab.
Naval Weapons Center drone director originally based at USN China Lake In July 1967, NOTS China Lake and the
Naval Ordnance Laboratory in
Corona, California, became the Naval Weapons Center. The Corona facilities were closed, and their functions transferred to the desert in 1971. In July 1979, the mission and functions of the National Parachute Test Range at
Naval Air Facility El Centro were transferred to China Lake.
Naval Air Weapons Station In January 1992, the
Naval Weapons Center and the
Pacific Missile Test Center Point Mugu were disestablished and joined with naval units at
Kirtland AFB in
Albuquerque and at the
White Sands Missile Range at
White Sands, NM as a single command - the
Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) of the
Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). At the same time, the physical plant at China Lake was designated as a Naval Air Weapons Station and became the host of the NAVAIR Weapons Division, performing the base-keeping functions. In 1982, the community area of China Lake, including most of the base housing, was annexed by the
City of Ridgecrest. In 2013, Congress reserved China Lake's acreage for an additional 25 years for military use. In 2014, U.S. Representative
Kevin McCarthy of California introduced a bill to permanently designate Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake property for military use, arguing it would save taxpayer money and enhance the base's mission. The bill would add , including about that were part of a bombing range in
San Bernardino County, as well as along the station's southwest boundary. The
Bureau of Land Management said that DoD needs could change in future decades and that it is a popular recreation area with trail riding, campsites, and hunting, and an important
wildlife corridor, especially for the threatened desert tortoise. The second, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake on July 5, resulted in the facility being evaluated as "not mission capable". == Weapons developed at China Lake ==