History
In 1941, the US Army Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) determined it needed a testing facility more remote than the US Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. The CWS surveyed the Western U.S. for a new location to conduct its tests, and, in the spring of 1942, construction of Dugway Proving Ground began.
Testing commenced in the summer of 1942. During World War II, DPG tested toxic agents, flamethrowers, chemical spray systems, biological warfare weapons, fire bombing tactics, antidotes for chemical agents, and protective clothing.
In October 1943, DPG established biological warfare facilities at an isolated area within DPG known as the Granite Peak Installation - UTTR's range telemetry and tracking radar installation. DPG was slowly phased out after World War II, until becoming inactive in August 1946.
The base was reactivated during the Korean War under Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Speers Ponder and in 1954 was confirmed as a permanent Department of the Army installation. In October 1958, the U.S. Army Chemical Center, Maryland detached the U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons School to Dugway Proving Grounds.
From 1985 to 1991, Dugway Proving Ground was home to the Ranger School's short-lived Desert Training Phase. It was first known as the Desert Ranger Division (DRD) until redesignated the Ranger Training Brigade's 7th Ranger Training Battalion in 1987, and taught students basic desert survival skills and small unit tactics. The program was later moved back to its original site at Fort Bliss, TX in 1991, where it was deactivated in 1995.
On September 8, 2004 the Genesis - a NASA spacecraft - was directed to impact into the desert floor of the Dugway Proving Ground because the topsoil there is like talcum-powder (e.g. moondust), and would likely cushion the troubled spacecraft's impact. The Genesis spacecraft's accelerometer was installed backwards, which caused the spacecraft to malfunction upon re-entry to Earth's atmosphere.
On January 26, 2011 Dugway Proving Ground was placed on lockdown. Al Vogel, a public affairs specialist for the installation, would only say that the lockdown began at 5:24 p.m. Employees were not allowed to leave, and those coming to work were not allowed in. Vogel said there were no injuries, no damage and no threats reported at the proving ground. There were about 1,200 to 1,400 people at Dugway when the lockdown occurred. It was later announced that the lockdown was in response to the temporary loss of a vial containing VX nerve agent. The lockdown was lifted on January 27 following recovery of the material.
Dugway Proving Ground was also home to the High Resolution Fly's Eye Cosmic Ray Detector, which discovered the first Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray. Dugway is home to several radio telemetry and tracking radar (i.e. RIR-777, TPQ-39 (Ver. V) and MPQ-39) sites which track national flight assets during flight tests at UTTR.
Read more about this topic: Dugway Proving Ground
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