Visiting the Mojave Air and Space Port

01What is the Mojave Air and Space Port?

Mojave Air and Space Port is a public-use airport with a control tower, publicly owned, about a mile east of the town of Mojave. Its main runway, 12/30, is 12,503 feet long; the airfield sits at 2,801 feet.⁸ It also holds a commercial spaceflight licence: the Federal Aviation Administration first issued its launch site operator licence, for horizontal launches, on 17 June 2004,¹⁰ and the current renewal runs to June 2029.⁹

The airport says it opened in 1935 as a small rural airfield serving local gold and silver mining, was taken over and expanded by the US Marine Corps in July 1942, passed to Kern County in 1961, and has been run since February 1972 by the district formed that year as the East Kern Airport District.³ That district now carries the airport’s name,¹⁰ and in January 2022 its directors added “at Rutan Field” in honour of the aircraft designer Burt Rutan.¹¹

It is a working industrial site. The airport describes more than 60 companies there, from aerospace design, flight test and research to heavy rail industry,⁴ and lists rocket motor testing, hot-fire tests, test flights and spacecraft testing among what goes on.² Around 13 miles of fence, surveillance, access control and patrols secure it, and airside access needs a badge.⁶

02Voyager, SpaceShipOne and what followed

Voyager. The aircraft that made the first nonstop, non-refuelled flight around the world was built at the Civilian Flight Test Center at Mojave Airport, starting in the summer of 1982. The record flight itself left from Edwards Air Force Base on 14 December 1986 and returned there nine days later; on 6 January 1987 Voyager made its last flight, home to Mojave.¹⁴

SpaceShipOne. On 21 June 2004 SpaceShipOne crossed the 62-mile (100 km) boundary of space on a flight that began with a launch from its carrier aircraft, the first time private enterprise rather than a government had done so.¹² The plaque on its replica in Legacy Park records that it flew to space from Mojave.¹⁹ That autumn it flew above the boundary twice within 14 days to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.¹² The prize was awarded on 4 October 2004 to Mojave Aerospace Ventures, led by Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites, with financial backing from Paul Allen.¹³

The companies. Scaled Composites was founded in 1982 by Herb Iversen, Burt Rutan and Pat Storch, and was bought by Northrop Grumman in 2007.¹⁵ Virgin Galactic, which moved its commercial spaceflights to Spaceport America in New Mexico and assembles its next spaceships in Arizona, still reported more than 200,000 square feet of manufacturing and operations space at Mojave, including rocket motor design and testing, in its annual report for 2025.¹⁶

03Can you visit the airplane boneyard?

The airport says its vast area and low-humidity desert conditions make it a storage site for airliners, some kept in flyable storage and most waiting to be broken up for scrap; many have had their engines removed, because airframes and engines are typically owned by different companies.⁷ It also says the commercial aircraft industry relies heavily on firms at Mojave for inspections, storage and parting-out.⁴

04What can visitors see? Tours, Legacy Park and Plane Crazy Saturday

The airport does not offer public tours.¹ But no special permission is needed for its public areas, and there are three.²

• The static display at the entrance. The gate guardians are one of only a handful of surviving Convair 990 Coronados, which last flew with a NASA programme testing the Space Shuttle’s wheels and brakes; a McDonnell Douglas F-4D Phantom; and a Saab Draken on loan from the National Test Pilot School.¹
• Legacy Park, across from the Administration Building, with the Rotary Rocket Roton and replicas of SpaceShipOne and Voyager.¹²
• The Administration Building, whose hallways are lined with historic photographs.²

There is no museum on the airport.² Visitors enter from the south on Airport Boulevard, at the Highway 58 entrance.¹

Plane Crazy Saturday. On the third Saturday of every month the Mojave Transportation Museum opens the transient ramp, under the old tower, for the public to see the aircraft that have flown in; visitors are asked to stay within a marked area.²

The museum asks that there be no smoking and no dogs or other animals on the flight line.¹⁷ Check the museum’s schedule before you go.¹⁷

05Mojave, the town next door

Mojave itself is an unincorporated town of 4,699 people at the 2020 census,¹⁸ where Highways 14 and 58 meet; BLM measures the distances to the Jawbone Canyon OHV Area and the Dove Springs OHV Area from that junction.²⁰ Roads between Mojave and California City are on getting here.