The Tonopah Test Range (TTR, also designated as Area 52) is a highly classified, restricted military installation of the United States Department of Defense, and United States Department of Energy (nuclear stockpile stewardship) located about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Tonopah, Nevada.

Tonopah Test Range is located about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Groom Lake, the home of the Area 51 facility.

The Tonopah Test Range[3] is owned by the United States Department of Energy and is managed by Sandia National Laboratories, a division of Honeywell International, which operates the Tonopah Test Range under an Air Force permit with the National Nuclear Security Administration.

[2] The range is part of the Great Basin Desert and lies mostly within the Cactus Flat valley, consisting of horst and graben geology.

Only Mellan Airstrip, 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Tonopah Test Range Airport, survived past the 1960s, upgraded to a 5,000-foot (1,500 m) concrete runway.

During the 1950s, weapons design research had been conducted largely at the Salton Sea testing base, but haze problems forced the Department of Energy to seek another location.

[9] The airfield was also serviced by one or two Janet Boeing 737 flights daily, which were presumably from McCarran International Airport and served Sandia National Laboratories employees.

Key Air departed directly from Nellis, AFB, and did not utilize McCarren International, as it was too far a distance from the base, and impractical.

In 2007 over concerns that the chemical was infiltrating groundwater, a whistleblower unsuccessfully attempted to get the Environmental Protection Agency to intervene, leading to an August 2007 inquiry with the Department of the Interior by Senator Harry Reid.

Satellite imagery confirms the US secretly acquiring the Russian made S-300PS surface-to-air missile system from an unknown supplier in order to test UAVs as well as other advanced aircraft based at nearby airbases.