Holloman High Speed Test Track | |
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Part of Holloman Air Force Base | |
Near Alamogordo, New Mexico in the United States | |
![]() A view of the Holloman High Speed Test Track, looking from south to north | |
![]() | |
Coordinates | 32°53′5.51″N106°8′59.76″W / 32.8848639°N 106.1499333°W |
Type | Military test facility |
Length | 50,971 feet (15,536 m) |
Site information | |
Owner | Department of Defense |
Operator | US Air Force |
Controlled by | Air Force Materiel Command |
Condition | Operational |
Website | Official website |
Site history | |
Built | 1949 |
In use | 1949 – present |
Events | Rocket sled speed record (2003) |
Garrison information | |
Occupants | 846th Test Squadron |
The Holloman High Speed Test Track (HHSTT) is a United States Department of Defense/Air Force aerospace ground test facility located at Holloman Air Force Base in south-central New Mexico. It is adjacent to the White Sands Missile Range and is operated by the 846th Test Squadron of the 704th Test Group of the Arnold Engineering Development Complex at Arnold Air Force Base.
The Test Track provides its services to a wide variety of American defense and governmental agencies such as the Air Force, Army, Navy, and the Missile Defense Agency, as well as America's allies. [1]
The HHSTT's mission is to provide a cost-effective, realistic, dynamic test environment for the entire acquisition community, including the DoD, other government agencies, contractors, [2] and foreign governments. As a ground-based test facility, [3] the HHSTT provides a cost-effective, controlled test environment for high-speed weapons, systems, and components. Full-scale flight tests tend to be more expensive than sled testing and present fewer opportunities to recover the test article for post-test evaluation.
The HHSTT was originally 3,350 ft (1,020 m) long when initial construction was completed in August 1949. [4] [5] The first test performed at the HHSTT was the launching of the Northrop N-25 Snark in 1950, [6] but soon included human tolerance testing under the command of Colonel John P. Stapp. [7] [8] [9] Col. Stapp was the last human test subject to ride the rocket-powered sleds at the HHSTT in December 1954. [10] The track was lengthened to 5,000 ft (1,500 m) in 1956, followed by another extension to 35,000 ft (11,000 m) in 1957.
The next major track extension occurred in 1974 when the rails from the Edwards Air Force Base test track were shipped to Holloman and added to the existing tracks to give a new total length of 50,771 ft (15,475 m). During this upgrade, a third rail, approximately 15,000 ft (4,600 m), was added for high-speed, narrow-gauge sleds. In 2000, pulldown extensions of 149 ft (45 m) were added to the north end of each rail, bringing the two primary rails to 50,917 feet (15,520 m). [11] [12]
The last major upgrade to the primary rail system occurred in 2002, when the narrow-gauge track was lengthened to 20,379 ft (6,212 m). The HHSTT currently holds the world land speed record for rocket sleds set in April 2003, at Mach 8.6, or 9,465 feet per second (2,885 meters per second), or 6,453.409 miles per hour (10,385.755 kilometres per hour). [11] [12]
As of April 2014, over 12,400 sled tests have been performed at the HHSTT. The first sled tests were performed in 1950; the facility has been in continuous operation since. The HHSTT is unusual within the DoD Test and Evaluation community because it has organic management, engineering, fabrication, and test-operation capabilities in one location. This ability to provide a "one-stop-shop" reduces test costs and schedule issues associated with geographically separated project functions.
A wide variety of tests have been performed at the HHSTT, [13] including aircraft crew-escape systems, [14] [15] rain and particle erosion tests, impact testing, weapons dispense testing, electronic warfare, guidance system testing, and a wide array of aerodynamic tests.
Because of the HHSTT's location on a military reservation in a sparsely populated area, tests may be performed in a secure environment. These large areas of open space may also be used to test items that are explosive, ballistic, or otherwise hazardous.
The most prominent feature of the facility is the rail system (similar in appearance to railroad tracks) used to launch rocket-powered test vehicles known as "sleds". The rail system is located just east of the White Sands National Park, and consists of a concrete foundation known as the girder that supports the two primary rails and a single tertiary rail. The westernmost rail is known as "A rail", followed by the adjacent "B rail" and "C rail". The alignment of the rails is nearly north–south. All three rails are fabricated from heavy-duty crane rail (171 pounds per yard or 85 kilograms per meter) and are maintained to an alignment of no more than 0.025 inches (0.64 mm) deviation from a nominal reference line between rail tiedowns.
A and B rails constitute the primary rails and are 50,917 feet (15,520 m) long. C rail, located at the north end of the track facility, is 20,379 feet (6,212 m) long. A and B rails are spaced 84 inches (210 cm), center to center, while C rail is spaced 26.3 inches (67 cm) to the east of B rail. Despite the simple appearance of the setup, the tracks constitute the straightest system of track ever laid. Rails A, B, and C are continuously welded and pre-stressed to be under tension at temperatures below 120 °F (49 °C).
Within the HHSTT infrastructure, there is a 6,000-foot (1,800 m) rainfield that is used to study the erosive effects caused by the impact of raindrops on material samples or components of weapon systems carried on rocket sleds. The rainfield system has been characterized for droplet size distribution and can simulate various combinations of rain environments from light rain to heavy rain, and produce flight conditions ranging from subsonic to hypersonic. This capability is used both for material development (usually involving systematic testing of material samples) and for qualifying flight hardware.
A separate system is currently under construction to support magnetic levitation, or maglev, sled development. The reason for this system is to produce flight-like vibration environments that can not be achieved on the main steel rail track. This system performed its first test in 2012 and continues to be operational.
Other facilities at the HHSTT include fabrication shops, project management and engineering buildings, munitions storage buildings, and heavy equipment staging areas.
Electronic data, which include test timing, vehicle position, velocity, and acceleration, are routinely collected at the HHSTT. These data are captured by various means, including Doppler radar, optical beam interrupter blades, breakwire installations and magnetic sensors, and a wide variety of component sensors to collect specialized data such as acceleration forces, strain, temperature, etc.
The data are collected with a variety of onboard data acquisition systems or telemetered for post-test analysis. Additionally, world-class technical imagery, including high-speed digital images, is available for customers to examine the status of their payloads. Track personnel use the same imagery to determine the status of the sled vehicle during tests. All data can be post-processed and merged using a common time reference to verify the accuracy of the data, and to produce a unified data product.
Optical imagery is captured with high-speed digital cameras.
Local meteorological data (e.g., temperature and barometric pressure) are also collected for each test for the calculation of Mach number or knots equivalent air speed as desired by the test customer.
A rocket sled is a test platform that slides along a set of rails, propelled by rockets.
Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is Edwards, California. Established in the 1930s as Muroc Field, the facility was renamed Muroc Army Airfield and then Muroc Air Force Base before its final renaming in 1950 for World War II USAAF veteran and test pilot Capt. Glen Edwards.
John Paul Stapp was an American career U.S. Air Force officer, flight surgeon, physician, biophysicist, and pioneer in studying the effects of acceleration forces on humans. He was a colleague and contemporary of Chuck Yeager, and became known as "the fastest man on earth". His work on Project Manhigh pioneered many developments for the US space program.
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established in 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, where the Trinity test site lay at the northern end of the Range, in Socorro County near the towns of Carrizozo and San Antonio. It then became the White Sands Proving Ground on 9 July 1945.
Little Joe II was an American rocket used from 1963 to 1966 for five uncrewed tests of the Apollo spacecraft launch escape system (LES), and to verify the performance of the command module parachute recovery system in abort mode. It was named after a similar rocket designed for the same function in Project Mercury. Launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, it was the smallest of four launch rockets used in the Apollo program.
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Holloman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base established in 1942 located six miles (10 km) southwest of the central business district of Alamogordo, and a census-designated place in Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The base was named in honor of Col. George V. Holloman, a pioneer in guided missile research. It is the home of the 49th Wing of the Air Education and Training Command (AETC).
The Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC), Arnold Engineering Development Center before July 2012, is an Air Force Materiel Command facility under the control of the Air Force Test Center (AFTC). Named for General Henry "Hap" Arnold, the father of the U.S. Air Force, AEDC is the most advanced and largest complex of flight simulation test facilities in the world.
The Air Force Missile Development Center and its predecessors were Cold War units that conducted and supported numerous missile tests using facilities at Holloman Air Force Base, where the center was the host unit.
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The Republic-Ford JB-2, also known as the Thunderbug, KGW and LTV-N-2 Loon, was a United States copy of the German V-1 flying bomb. Developed in 1944, and planned to be used in the United States invasion of Japan, the JB-2 was never used in combat. It was the most successful of the United States Army Air Forces Jet Bomb (JB) projects during World War II. Postwar, the JB-2 played a significant role in the development of more advanced surface-to-surface tactical missile systems such as the MGM-1 Matador and later MGM-13 Mace.
A rocket sled launch, also known as ground-based launch assist, catapult launch assist, and sky-ramp launch, is a proposed method for launching space vehicles. With this concept the launch vehicle is supported by an eastward pointing rail or maglev track that goes up the side of a mountain while an externally applied force is used to accelerate the launch vehicle to a given velocity. Using an externally applied force for the initial acceleration reduces the propellant the launch vehicle needs to carry to reach orbit. This allows the launch vehicle to carry a larger payload and reduces the cost of getting to orbit. When the amount of velocity added to the launch vehicle by the ground accelerator becomes great enough, single-stage-to-orbit flight with a reusable launch vehicle becomes possible.
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The 96th Test Group was a United States Air Force unit, based at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. It was a Geographically Separate Unit (GSU), assigned to the 96th Test Wing, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
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Albert II was a male rhesus macaque monkey who was the first primate and first mammal in space. He flew from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, United States, to an altitude of 83 miles aboard a U.S. V-2 sounding rocket on June 14, 1949. Albert died upon reentry after a parachute failure caused his capsule to strike the ground at high speed. Albert's respiratory and cardiological data were recorded up to the moment of impact.
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