Air Force Missile Development Center

This article is about the 1957 unit on Holloman Air Force Base and its predecessors. For the 1962 Project Blue Fly organization at Holloman "to obtain downed Soviet hardware...for technical analysis[1]", see Foreign Technology Division.

Air Force Missile Development Center
Air Force Missile Development Center sign in 1958
Active1 September 1957[2]-1 August 1970[3]
CountryUnited States
BranchUnited States Air Force, assigned to:

with predecessors assigned to:

RoleResearch & Development
1948 April 23-1949 January 10: AMC Project EO-727-12 reactivated JB-2 launches at Holloman for testing missile guidance control and seeker systems, and telemetering/optical tracking facilities, as well as use as targets for new surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. The above two-rail JB-2 launch ramp at Holloman was a 400 ft (120 m) on a 3° earth-filled slope—a second 40 ft (12 m) ramp was on a trailer[4] (1948–49 missile detection experiments used modified SCR-270 radar at Holloman.)[5]

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 ("Holloman" and "Development Center" were sometimes colloquially used to identify military installations in the Tularosa Basin).

  1. ^ "New Missile Book, and Blue Fly" (PDF). December 2011. Archived from the original (Letters to AAFM) on 18 May 2014. Blue Fly, to exploit Soviet hardware when it comes more or less permanently into US or allied hands, Round Robin, to exploit Soviet hardware when it comes temporarily into US hands (e.g. Russian aircraft landing at international or US airfields) and Moon Dust, to exploit big booster or missile and satellite equipment which fell from the air hence the name applied (e.g. the piece of Soviet equipment which fell into Wisconsin). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Association was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Air Force Systems Command Special Order G-94
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mindling was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Stanley G. Zabetakis; John F. Peterson (Fall 1964). "The Diyarbakir Radar" (PDF). CIA.