Churchill Rocket Research Range
Complex seen from Landsat 7 in June 2013
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| Location | Near Churchill, Manitoba |
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| Coordinates | 58°44′03″N 93°49′13″W / 58.73417°N 93.82028°WCoordinates: 58°44′03″N 93°49′13″W / 58.73417°N 93.82028°W |
| Short name | Fort Churchill |
| Operator |
Defence Research Board (1954-1958) United States Army (1959-1970) National Research Council (1970-1989) Canadian Space Agency (1998) |
| Total launches | 3,500 |
| Launch pad(s) | 4 |
| Official name | Churchill Rocket Research Range National Historic Site of Canada |
| Designated | 1988 |
The Churchill Rocket Research Range is a former rocket launch site located 23 kilometres (14 mi) outside of Churchill, Manitoba. The facility was used by Canada and the United States beginning in 1954 for sub-orbital launches of sounding rockets to study the upper atmosphere. The last launch from the facility was a Canadian Space Agency Black Brant IXB ionosphere research rocket which took place on April 28, 1998.
The site is sometimes referred to as Fort Churchill after the nearby military base (now Churchill Airport) and connected by an all-weather gravel road to the town of Churchill itself. The site is no longer used for launches and currently the location of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, a non-profit and multi-disciplinary research facility that is also open to educational tourism.
The complex was first built in 1954 by the Canadian Army to study the effects of auroras on long distance communications. The programme shut down in 1955, but the site was re-opened and greatly expanded in 1956 as part of Canada's participation in International Geophysical Year. Launches for the IGY experiments started in 1957, and the site was closed again in December 1958 when the IGY, which was actually two years long, ended.
The site was reopened again in August 1959 by the US Army as part of its network of sounding rocket stations. In September 1959 it was used to test CARDE's new solid fuel propellant systems with PVT-1, the vehicle that would evolve into the Black Brant. However, in late 1960 a fire destroyed many of the facilities. It was announced that the Black Brant test series would be continued with an additional twelve launches at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility during 1961-62, while the facilities at Churchill were rebuilt.
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