Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake

The Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake (NAWS China Lake) is an airborne weapons testing and training range operated by the United States Navy and its contractors.

It is located at , in the northeast of California's Mojave Desert. The main airfield, Armitage Field, is situated several miles southeast of China Lake itself, a playa lake from which the range takes its name. It is the home base of several tenant commands, including the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD). NAWS China Lake is the US Navy's largest single holding of land, comprised of 1.1 million acres (approximately one-third (1/3) of the US Navy's total land holdings in the world), and the airspace controlled jointly by the NAWS, Edwards Air Force Base and Fort Irwin is the largest in the Department of Defense known as the R-2508 Special Use Airspace Complex. According to the California State Military Museum Web site //www.militarymuseum.org/NAFInyokern.html#c,the land, ranging in altitude from 2,100 to 8,900 feet, varies from flat dry lake beds to rugged piñon pine covered mountains. The majority of the land is undeveloped and provides habitat for more than 340 species of wildlife and 650 plant types. The area was once also home to Native Americans, whose presence here is marked by thousands of archaeological sites, and to early miners and settlers whose cabins and mining structures are still found scattered throughout the Station.

Historically rich, NAWS traces its heritage to the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) established at nearby Inyokern in 1943. Since then it has been one of the US Navy's premier weapons development facilities and continues to support the US fleet.

Inventions tested and refined at China Lake include the Sidewinder missile and the continuous-rod warhead.

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Military facilities in the Mojave Desert | United States Navy | United States Navy air stations

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