A new U.S. Navy submarine missile test complex is coming to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and construction on the facility will be completed in 2015.
The Strategic Weapons System Ashore facility will be created as a result of the Navy’s collaboration with the economic development commission of Florida’s Space Coast and Space Florida, according to an Aug. 2 Space Florida press release. Space Florida is the state’s aerospace economic development agency.
The facility will be located at Cape Canaveral complexes 25 and 29 to provide the Navy with a single, land-based facility for testing submarine missile systems. The two sites were constructed for submarine missile tests in the 1950s and will be refurbished for the new project, according to the press release. The Navy stopped using the complexes in the 1970s.
Construction on the project is expected to begin later this year. While stationary missiles equipped with electronic monitoring equipment will be used for testing, there will be no actual missile launches at the test facility.
The Navy used computer simulation in the past to test missile launch systems, fire control, guidance and navigation and the actual missiles at multiple locations across the United States. The construction of the new facility will give officials the opportunity to test the “interactions of the system components” using the same hardware and software that is found on submarines, according to the press release.
Space Florida will provide $5 million for three years for demolishing and rebuilding the site, according to the press release. The new facility will be used to test systems found in the current Ohio-class submarine and systems for its replacement submarine.
