History
The birth of the nation's military presence in space was the Corona spy-satellite program. Recently declassified, this program convinced the Air Force that a dedicated unit was needed to provide satellite-tracking support for the military. In April 1959, the 6594th Test Wing was activated with its temporary headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. In 1960, land was purchased in Sunnyvale to form the Air Force Satellite Test Center. Construction on the "Blue Cube" was completed in 1968, and on January 1, 1971, the Sunnyvale facilities became Sunnyvale Air Force Station. The installation was renamed to Onizuka Air Force Station on July 24, 1986, in honor of Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka, who lost his life in the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion.
21st SOPS rose out of this rich history. It was activated on October 1, 1991, and within one year, 21st SOPS absorbed the roles of the 2nd Satellite Tracking Group Operations Division and the 1999th Communications Squadron Operations Division. After the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Committee directed realignment of Onizuka AFS, 21st SOPS absorbed the roles of the 750th Space Group and all subordinate units and the 5th Space Operations Squadron.
Read more about this topic: 21st Space Operations Squadron
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“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)