• Forum
• SITREP
• Military
• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security

• Space

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Public Eye

Onizuka Air Force Station

Located 37 miles Southeast of San Francisco, in the heart of Silicon Valley in Sunnydale, CA, Onizuka Air Force Station is home to the 21st Space Operations Squadron, which is Onizuka's host unit. The mission of the 21st Space Operations Squadron is to plan and conduct specialized communications for a wide spectrum of DoD, allied, civil and commercial space systems. The squadron is rich in tradition. Every space shuttle mission in history has been supported from Onizuka. It schedules, allocates and configures Air Force Satellite Control Network common user resources; monitors, maintains and updates the status of AFSCN resources; and provides status, configurations and readiness of controlled resources to multiple users and command centers. It is also resoponsible for maintaining Onizuka's two, 60-foot, Defense Satellite Communication System antennas. The 21st SOPS acts as the back-up for scheduling tracking station usage for satellite operators. In its 2005 BRAC Recommendations, Onizuka was recommended for closure by the Department of Defense and the 21st SOPS was recommended for relocation to Vandenberg AFB, CA.

Onizuka was founded with the purchase of 11.4 acres of land from Lockheed for the bargain price of $1 Dollar, as the 6594th TW became the Air Force Satellite Test Center. This location was to become what is now known as Onizuka AFS. The station's name would change several times before settling on Onizuka. In 1964, the instelation was renamed "Air Force Satellite Control Facility." 1971 saw the station's Sunnyvale facilities renamed Sunnyvale Air Force Station. In 1986, the same year of the Challenger explosion, Sunnyvale AFS was renamed Onizuka AFB in honor of Air Force Lt. Colonel Ellison S. Onizuka, an astronaut that died on the Challenger.

Construction of Onizuka's infamous Blue Cube began in 1967 and was completed in 1968. In 1977, the Air Force Satellite Control Facility command functions officially transferred to Sunnyvale AFS (Onizuka) from Space Divisions in Los Angeles.

In 1982, the AFSPC was established and immediately began acquiring satellite operations previously aligned under AF Systems Command. With the new command established and AF Satellite Control Facility deactivated, the 2nd Space Wing formed on July 8, 1985 (re-designated the 50th Space Wing on Jan. 30, 1992) as well as the 2nd Satellite Tracking Group.

In 1992, the 750th Space Group was activated and became responsible for launch and early orbit of the following missions: IUS, Shuttle, Booster Operations Communications Satellites, DSCS GPS, DSP Satellites. By 1999, however, the BRAC Recommendations of 1996 had gone into effect, resulting in the deactivation of the 750th Space Group. The 21st Space Operations Squadron thus became the dominant unit and would host Onizuka AFS operations and tenant units.

In 1993 the 5th Space Operations Squadron was activated and continued wide spectrum of missions under 50 SW - DSCS, IUS, NASA, Booster and NATO/SKYNET programs.

Although the Station employed roughly 3,000 employees during the mid-1990s, continual cuts in Onizuka's missions have depleted the station's employment to under 300.

In addition to supporting every shuttle mission to date, the team at Onizuka Air Force Station was involved in some of the most significant space missions in history:

• Magellan was the first planetary spacecraft to be launched by a space shuttle. It performed a 15-month cruise looping around the sun 1-1/2 times before it arrived at Venus on August 1990. By the end of its first 8-month orbital cycle, Magellan had sent to Earth detailed images of 84 percent of Venus's surface. The spacecraft then conducted radar mapping on two more 8-month cycles from May 1991 to September 1992. This allowed it to capture detailed maps of 98 percent of the planet's surface.
• Galileo was launched from the Space Shuttle Atlantis in October 1989. It witnessed the crash of the Shoemaker-Levy comet into Jupiter before beginning its orbit of the planet in December 1995. It collected over 30 gigabytes of data (including 14,000 pictures) before its mission ended in 2003.
• The Hubble Space Telescope is the first scientific mission of any kind that is specifically designed for routine servicing by spacewalking astronauts. Every day, Hubble archives 3 to 5 gigabytes of data and delivers between 10 and 15 gigabytes to astronomers all over the world, including the best views of the planet Mars, images of the expanding universe, and the birth and death of stars. Hubble was also the first optical telescope to provide convincing proof of a black hole several billion times the mass of the sun.

BRAC 2005

In its 2005 BRAC Recommendations, DoD recommended to close Onizuka Air Force Station, CA. It would relocate Onizuka's Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN) mission, including the 21st Space Operations Squadron, and tenant Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Defense Satellite Communication System (DSCS) mission and equipment to Vandenberg AFB.

This recommendation would consolidate satellite command and control operations while reducing excess infrastructure. Onizuka AFS (124) hosted the AFSCN Second Node and scheduling backup mission, but had no primary assigned Air Force Space Command operational mission. Onizuka AFS also supported classified tenant missions that were anticipated to phase out during the BRAC 2005 timeframe. Schriever Air Force Base, CO (1) ranked highest in military value for satellite operations, but hosted the AFSCN Primary Node. Vandenberg Air Force Base (2) hosted one of the AFSCN remote tracking stations. An Air Force Space Command policy directive on backup satellite control operations prescribed the requirements for backup operations and geographical separation to preclude simultaneous degradation of both primary and secondary nodes from natural or man-made threats. During major command capacity briefings to Headquarters Air Force, Onizuka AFS was identified as having seismic and antiterrorism/force protection constraints, with no buildable land to mitigate these. Vandenberg Air Force Base offered better protection for the DSCS Sun East and Sun West antenna complexes, which were designated a Protection-Level 1 resource.

The total estimated one-time cost to the Department of Defense to implement this recommendation would be $123.7M. The net of all costs and savings to the Department during the implementation period would be a cost of $45.3M. Annual recurring savings to the Department after implementation would be $25.9M, with a payback expected in five years. The net present value of the cost and savings to the Department over 20 years would be a savings of $211.0M. Assuming no economic recovery, this recommendation could result in a maximum potential reduction of 393 jobs (278 direct jobs and 115 indirect jobs) over the 2006-2011 period in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA, Metropolitan Statistical economic area (less than 0.1 percent). Environmentally, there would be potential impacts to air quality; cultural, archeological, or tribal resources; land use constraints or sensitive resource areas; threatened and endangered species or critical habitat; and wetlands that may need to be considered during the implementation of this recommendation. Impacts of costs include $0.04M in costs for environmental compliance and waste management (included in cost calculation).