Space Park


Space Park is an aerospace engineering campus occupying over 100 acres in Redondo Beach, California, since 1961, expanding in 1968 to a nearly adjacent 90 acres in Manhattan Beach.
Founded as Space Technology Center by Space Technology Laboratories, the site is now owned and operated by Northrop Grumman Corp. since its 2002 acquisition of TRW Inc. This group of buildings became the first in the USA constructed solely for the entire process of designing, building, and testing spacecraft. The architects designed them so every engineer could have a desk with a window view of tree-scaped courtyards. During the 1960 groundbreaking ceremony, STL leaders joined in an ecumenical prayer for the space age: "We dedicate this building then to the protection of our land, to the discovery of our universe, but most of all to the spearheading of Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men."

Prominent buildings

This list includes buildings with prefixes to readily identify activities therein, shown in maps published for visitors:
Names on the original building signs were hyphenated ; though some remain, most have been replaced by non-hyphenated ones.
Bldg. E2 houses a 3,500 sq. ft. museum that is open to the public during business hours. The exhibit includes a scale model of the Spirit of St. Louis, an original Pioneer 1 satellite, and an Apollo mission engine.
Shortly after acquiring TRW, NGC built the Space Technology Presentation Center north of E2, sometimes calling it Northrop Grumman Presentation Center before officially renaming it Aerospace Presentation Center.
As business needs have fluctuated, other buildings have been acquired or leased near Space Park in Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, and Torrance.

Public milestones

STL, TRW, and NGC have made technological achievements at their other locations; but this section only chronicles publicized activities at, or closely related to, Space Park. A significant amount of the work on the campus involves spy satellites that cannot be listed because of national security secrets, and sometimes the delivery of these systems from Space Park can require closure of public facilities.

1960s

  • October 6, 1960 STL announced holding an option on land for a 10-building complex.
  • 1960 STL purchased 110 acres from Santa Fe Railroad in Redondo Beach.
  • December 7, 1960 Ground broken for first three buildings: R1 and R2 for research, and E for engineering.
  • January 6, 1961 STL awarded contract to build Orbiting Geophysical Observatories to conduct experiments within Earth's atmosphere, magnetosphere, and in cis-lunar space to better understand Earth-Sun relationships and Earth itself as a planet.
  • November 1, 1961 Ribbon-cutting ceremony held as R1 opened for business.
  • November 24, 1961 STL awarded contract to build Vela satellites for detecting nuclear explosions.
  • June 29, 1962 Senator Robert S. Kerr gave keynote speech for site's formal dedication after completing E1, M1, R1, R2, and R3.
  • November 1962 Harold Peary toured Space Park while serving as honorary mayor of Manhattan Beach.
  • December 1962 NBC News aerospace reporter, Roy Neal promoted his Minuteman Missile book at Space Park.
  • April–May 1963 NASA Administrator James E. Webb toured Space Park.
  • May 1963 NASA selected STL to competitively develop a Lunar Excursion Module Descent Engine for its Apollo program.
  • June 24, 1963 Pamela Britton and Byron Keith promoted U.S. Savings Bonds at Space Park.
  • October 16, 1963 Successful launch of the first pair of STL-built Vela satellites, which began enforcing the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
  • May 22, 1964 Ronald Reagan gave a speech for conservatism outside the Bldg. S cafeteria.
  • July 16, 1964 Successful launch of the second pair of STL-built Vela satellites.
  • July 1964 Lawrence Dobkin directed on-site filming of scenes for the Boy Meets Girl episode of My Living Doll starring Julie Newmar and Robert Cummings.
  • * View of R1, E1, and R2 looking southwest during opening credits pans down to prop sign: SRC, Space Research Center Inc. This same scene was replayed at the beginning of The Love Machine episode.
  • * 3 minutes in, Newmar walks northeast from E1 past the pool and R2 toward R1.
  • * Still photos published in the Sentinel newspaper for TRW employees show Newmar continuing north from R2 with E1 in the background. In this scene that never aired, gardeners stare at her mesmerized, one of them humorously spraying the other with a water hose.
  • * 4 minutes in, Cummings exits R1 to discuss Newmar's whereabouts with Henry Beckman.
  • * 6 minutes in, Newmar walks southwest about 500 meters from Space Park with R2, E1, S, and M1 in the background, causing a traffic collision after crossing Aviation Boulevard at 12th Street in Manhattan Beach.
  • 1964 Charles F. Haas directed on-site filming of scenes for the "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" episode of The Outer Limits starring William Shatner, Lloyd Gough, and Geraldine Brooks.
  • * 4 minutes in, Shatner parks his car with Gough in the lot north of bldg. S.
  • * 5 minutes in, Shatner and Gough enter bldg. E1 for a press conference.
  • * 6 minutes in, Shatner is shown the Space Environment Test Chamber in bldg. M1 and is told it can go from "315 degrees below 0 Fahrenheit to 275 above, and create a vacuum equivalent to 700,000 feet altitude"
  • * 16.5 minutes in, the south entrance of bldg. R1 is shown with R3, S, and E1 in the background for an establishing shot.
  • * 34 minutes in, another establishing shot of Shatner's car in the same parking lot as the opening scene, but in mirror image.
  • * 41.5 minutes in, scene inside bldg. M1 staged so that Brooks appears to be coaxing Shatner in the Space Environment Chamber.
  • September 5, 1964 Successful launch of the STL-built OGO-1, the first operational three-axis-stable spacecraft.
  • October 8, 1964 Charlton Heston and Polly Bergen gave speeches against California Proposition 14 outside the Bldg. S cafeteria.
  • January 18, 1965 NASA chose STL's LEMDE for its Apollo program.
  • May 1965 STL became TRW Systems Group.
  • July 17, 1965 Successful launch of the third pair of TRW-built Vela satellites.
  • October 14, 1965 Successful launch of the TRW-built OGO-2.
  • 1965 Dick Pick and Don Nelson began developing the Generalized Information Retrieval Language System at TRW to control the inventory of Cheyenne helicopter parts, which became a forerunner of the first multi-platform, general-purpose computing environments.
  • 1966 United States Air Force awarded contract to TRW for Defense Support Program, a Satellite Early-Warning System to monitor ballistic-missile launches and nuclear explosions.
  • May 9, 1966 Ronald Reagan returned to Space Park while campaigning to become governor.
  • June 7, 1966 Successful launch of the TRW-built OGO-3.
  • October 1966 Robert Altman directed five short scenes on site for Countdown.
  • * 4 minutes in, Joanna Moore arrives in the parking lot north of R1 as the wife of an astronaut played by James Caan, who converses with his commander played by Robert Duvall, and their manager played by Steve Ihnat.
  • * 19 minutes in, Duvall exits a staircase from the lower level of bldg. S, shunning the medical doctor played by Charles Aidman exiting the ground-level bridge.
  • * 36 minutes in, a journalist confronts Aidman as he walks alongside the pool with R1 and R3 in the background.
  • * 72 minutes in, extras pass by R2's east entry at night with the caption, "Space Control Center, Houston, Texas".
  • * 95 minutes in, Moore sits on the pool's rim at night, then is joined by Duvall to discuss her husband's fate with E1 and R2 in the background.
  • October 11, 1966 Pat Brown campaigned at Space Park, hoping to remain Governor of California for a third term.
  • October 31, 1966 Ronald Reagan returned to Space Park for a third time near the end of E2's construction.
  • November 1, 1966 TRW was granted a patent for James Buie's coupling-transistor logic.
  • February 15, 1967 Herschel Daugherty directed on-site filming of scenes for the "Operation -- Annihilate!" episode of Star Trek.
  • * 7.5 minutes in, viewed from R3, Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, and two other crew members beam down from their starship Enterprise to the east side of the pool between E1, R1, R2, and R3; then walk toward R3.
  • * Briefly viewed from R2's roof, the crew proceeds southward along the west side of the pool walking toward the northwest corner of E1.
  • * Briefly viewed from bldg. S, the crew proceeds eastward from the southeast corner of E1 toward the west side of S.
  • * 8 minutes in, viewed from E2, the crew pauses at the northwest corner of S to discuss their observations, then backtracks toward E2.
  • * 8.5 minutes in, on the lower-level patio of S, they observe four hostile men approaching from E2, who run down the northeast staircase toward them. They stun all four, then hear a woman scream from inside S, and run to her aid.
  • * 16 minutes in, Kirk beams back down to the northeast staircase of S to rejoin the crew on the patio.
  • * Indoor scenes where flying creatures attack the crew were not filmed in S, but in a studio decorated with hexagonal wall patterns resembling those on the exterior walls of S along with a small imitation of Space Park's two outdoor pools.
  • * 30 minutes in, Spock returns to the S patio alone, but is again attacked by a man whom he subdues.
  • * 31 minutes in, establishing shots of the pool viewed from R2's roof, and E2 viewed from the lower-level patio of S.
  • April 28, 1967 Successful launch of the fourth pair of TRW-built Vela satellites.
  • July 28, 1967 Successful launch of the TRW-built OGO-4.
  • 1967 TRW began designing, constructing, and testing a powertrain for a hybrid car using an electromechanical transmission built in M1, and a dynamometer in Bldg. 67.
  • January 8, 1968 TRW filed a patent on the coaxial injector used in the LEMDE to provide combustion stability over a wide range of thrust.
  • March 4, 1968 Successful launch of the TRW-built OGO-5.
  • May 16, 1968 Robert F. Kennedy gave a presidential-campaign speech in the E1/R1/R2/R3 plaza three weeks before he was assassinated.
  • September 10, 1968 Vice President Hubert Humphrey gave a presidential-campaign speech at Space Park.
  • March 3, 1969 Space and Missile Systems Organization awarded contract to TRW for DSCS II satellites.
  • March 17, 1969 TRW filed a patent for the powertrain of a hybrid car.
  • 1969 Greg Morris toured Space Park, possibly related to using it as a filming location for Mission: Impossible.
  • May 22, 1969 Apollo 10 successfully used TRW's LEMDE for a controlled descent toward the Moon, bringing humans to 8.4 nautical miles from its surface.
  • May 23, 1969 Successful launch of the fifth pair of TRW-built Vela satellites.
  • June 5, 1969 Successful launch of the TRW-built OGO-6.
  • July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 successfully landed the first humans on the Moon using TRW's LEMDE.
  • 1969 Alan Shepard, America's first astronaut on Mercury-Redstone 3 in 1961 and Apollo 14 commander in 1971, honored Space Park employees with Silver Snoopy awards in Bldg. M2.
  • November 19, 1969 Apollo 12 successfully landed on the Moon using TRW's LEMDE.