page_title: Edwards Air Force Base
section_title: Space Shuttle support
hierarchical_section_title: Edwards Air Force Base / History / Cold War / Space Shuttle support
caption_attribution_description: English: The Space Shuttle Endeavour atop its modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft lifts off from Edwards Air Force Base on the first leg of its ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center just after sunrise on Dec. 10, 2008. Français&#160;: La navette spatiale américaine Endeavour sur un avion de transport Boeing 747 décolle de la base Edwards de l'US Air Force pour la première étape de son convoyage de retour pour le centre spacial Kennedy, juste après le lever du soleil le 10 décembre 2008.
context_page_description: Edwards Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation located in Kern County in Southern California, about 22 miles northeast of Lancaster, 15 miles east of Rosamond and 5.5 miles south of California City.
  It is the home of the Air Force Test Center, Air Force Test Pilot School, and NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. It is the Air Force Materiel Command center for conducting and supporting research and development of flight, as well as testing and evaluating aerospace systems from concept to combat. It also hosts many test activities conducted by America's commercial aerospace industry.
  Notable occurrences at Edwards include Chuck Yeager's flight that broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, test flights of the North American X-15, the first landings of the Space Shuttle, and the 1986 around-the-world flight of the Rutan Voyager.
context_section_description: After President Richard M. Nixon announced the Space Shuttle program on 5 January 1972, Edwards was chosen for Space Shuttle orbiter testing. The prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise was carried to altitude by the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) and released. In all, 13 test flights were conducted with the Enterprise and the SCA to determine their flight characteristics and handling.
  After Space Shuttle Columbia became the first shuttle launched into orbit on 12 April 1981, it returned to Edwards for landing. The airbase's immense lakebeds and its proximity to Plant 42, where the shuttle was serviced before relaunch, were important factors in its selection and it continued to serve as the primary landing area for the space shuttle until 1991. After that time, Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida was favored. This saved the considerable cost of transporting the shuttle from California back to Florida, but Edwards AFB and White Sands Space Harbor continued to serve as backups for the duration of the shuttle program. Shuttles landed at Edwards as recently as 9 August 2005 (STS-114), 22 June 2007 (STS-117), 30 November 2008 (STS-126), 24 May 2009 (STS-125), and 11 September 2009 (STS-128) due to rain and ceiling events at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility. STS-126 was the only mission to land on temporary runway 04 at Edwards, as the refurbished main runway was operational from STS-119 through to the retirement of the shuttles.
caption: Space Shuttle Endeavour atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft taking off from Edwards AFB after the STS-126 mission, 9 December 2008. For a complete list of Space Shuttle landing locations, see: List of space shuttle missions.
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