California City Municipal Airport

California City is a city located in northern Antelope Valley in Kern County, California, United States. It is 100 miles (160 km) north of the city of Los Angeles, and the population was 14,973 at the 2020 census. Covering 203.63 square miles (527.4 km2), California City has the third-largest land area of any city in the state of California (behind San Diego and Los Angeles), and is the largest city in California, by land area, that is not a county seat. It is the 43rd-largest city in the United States by land area. Much of the city's residents are employed at Edwards Air Force Base, which is located 18 miles (29 km) southeast of the city. Other major employers are the California City Correctional Center (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation), Mojave Air and Space Port (and its flight test facility) and the Hyundai/Kia Proving Grounds, located in the rural southwestern part of the city. California City also has a park, a PGA golf course, and a municipal airport.

Wonder Acres is a settlement in the western Mojave Desert, within eastern Kern County, southern California, in the United States. It is located northeast of the city of Mojave, on California State Route 14 at the intersection with California City Boulevard. It is 5 miles (8.0 km) west of California City, and 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Cache Creek.

The Beacon Solar Project is a photovoltaic power station in the northwestern Mojave Desert, near California City in eastern Kern County, California. Split into five phases, the combined Beacon solar facilities generate 250 MW of renewable energy for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The five phases of the project, fully completed in December 2017, include a total of 903,434 individual solar photovoltaic modules, mounted onto Nextpower single-axis tracking systems. The Beacon Solar Project was originally proposed by NextEra Energy using parabolic trough mirrors as solar energy collectors for a solar thermal electric energy generation project. The solar thermal electric powerplant technology configuration raised significant concerns during the CEQA environmental permitting process. Among the many environmental concerns, the natural gas supply, the wastewater management and disposal, and the water supply during construction and during operation of the plant were concerns specific to the solar thermal technology. The project was reconfigured, simplified and rescoped to a photovoltaic technology, eliminating the solar thermal technology concerns, though significant other environmental concerns remained. LADWP acquired the entire project, including the land and the environmental permitting for the site in 2012 as photovoltaic technology, which gained economic advantages over solar thermal and other technologies as a result of rapidly decreasing costs of solar photovoltaic modules. LADWP contracted Hecate Energy to develop three phases of the project, for 162 MW, and SunEdison, to develop the other two phases, for 88 MW. SunEdison's stake in the project was later acquired by Capital Dynamics. Hecate Energy's stake in the project was acquired by sPower (Sustainable Power), and was completed by sPower, who was later acquired by AES. In October 2018, LADWP commissioned the Beacon Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), with 10 MWh/20 MW of storage to stabilize the energy sent to the grid by the solar panels.

The Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area (DTRNA) is a 39.5-square-mile (102 km2) area in the western Mojave Desert, located in eastern Kern County, Southern California. It was created to protect the native desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), which is also the California state reptile. The area is located at the southwestern end of the Rand Mountains, northeast of California City, and has an interpretive center for visitors. 640 acres (260 ha) of the land was given to the Bureau of Land Management in a 1980 agreement over the Great Western Cities Company land schemes as part of an effort to acquire clear title. The Bureau of Land Management recognized the significance of the area and designated it an "Area of Critical Environmental Concern" and as a "Research Natural Area" in 1980.

Honda Proving Center of California (HPCC) is a test track established in 1990 and used primarily for testing Honda and Acura automobiles, although motorcycles are also tested there. HPCC is located near Cantil, California, in Kern County. Security is tight, and pilots flying near the track have reported seeing cars immediately heading for cover as they got close to the facility.

Cache Creek is an arroyo (dry wash) in the western Tehachapi Pass and Mojave Desert areas of Kern County, southern California. The arroyo's intermittent creek flows seasonally from watersheds in the northeastern Tehachapi Mountains and southeastern Sierra Nevada foothills, and from infrequent rains as flash floods, ending in the Mojave Desert.

California City Correctional Facility (CAC) is a secure facility owned by CoreCivic. It was formerly staffed and operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as a men's level II (low-medium) security prison. The facility was built on speculation, without any customer contract to fill it. Construction was completed in 1998. Beginning in 2006, it housed federal inmates for the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The federal contract included daily transportation to the San Diego County Courthouse and Southern Nevada Correctional Center, and as-needed to JPATS-Victorville ("Con Air"). The per-diem rate in 2010 was $77.50 per prisoner, decreasing to $58.00 as the count increased. The federal use of the facility ended in 2013. In response to a federal order to reduce overcrowding at the state's prison facilities, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation started leasing the facility in 2013 for $28.5 million yearly. Former guards, previously privately contracted, transferred to become state correctional officers after eight weeks of training. CAC was the only CDCR state prison under this arrangement; all other state prisons are both owned and operated by CDCR. All inmates were moved out by November 2023. The state terminated its lease so the prison will be effectively closed by March 2024.

Jawbone Canyon is a geographic feature in the Mojave Desert and a Bureau of Land Management area located in Kern County, California, 20 miles (32 km) north of Mojave on CA 14 near Cantil, CA. The area is a popular destination for hikers and off road vehicle enthusiasts.

Stratolaunch LLC is an American aerospace company providing high-speed flight test services. It was originally formed in 2011 to develop a new air-launched space transportation system, with its corporate headquarters located in Seattle. The company and development project were officially announced in December 2011 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan, who had previously collaborated on the creation of SpaceShipOne. After 10 years of previous private investment, the company was acquired in 2019 by Cerberus Capital Management and has since been 100% privately funded and operated as a non-traditional defense contractor. The project originally had three primary components: a carrier aircraft being built by Scaled Composites (model Stratolaunch, called "Roc"), a multi-stage payload launch vehicle which was to have been launched at high altitude into space from under the carrier aircraft, plus a mating and integration system by Dynetics. Ultimately, only the carrier aircraft was fully developed by the time of Paul Allen's death in late 2018. The carrier aircraft first flew in April 2019, at the Mojave Air and Space Port, reaching 15,000 ft (4,600 m) and 190 mph (305 km/h) in a 2 hour 29 minute flight.Stratolaunch underwent a change of ownership and direction when Jean Floyd took lead as CEO in 2019, reacquiring staff and growing to 87 employees by the beginning of 2020. Dr. Zachary Krevor now serves in the role of President and Chief Executive Officer of Stratolaunch, LLC and has been the company head since March 2022. Prior to becoming the President and Chief Operating Officer at Stratolaunch LLC, Dr. Krevor was the Vice President of Engineering at Stratolaunch Systems Corporation.

Desert Spring is a former settlement in Kern County, California in the Fremont Valley, south of Red Rock Canyon State Park. It was located 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northeast of Cantil. The place, with natural springs, was important as a source of freshwater to the Native Americans, explorers, prospectors, and others in the Mojave Desert. Visitors included Joseph R. Walker in 1834, John C. Fremont in 1844, and migrants entering California in 1850 who had used the El Paso Range route. Later in the 19th century the water source was used by "ore freighters and prospectors". The site is now registered as California Historical Landmark #476. California Historical Landmark reads: NO. 476 DESERT SPRING - This spring was on an old Indian horse thief trail and later (1834) Joe Walker Trail. The famished Manly-Jayhawk Death Valley parties (1849-50) were revived here after coming from Indian Wells through Last Chance Canyon. This was also a station on the Nadeau Borax Freight Road.

The National Test Pilot School (NTPS) is the only civilian test-pilot school in the United States, located in Mojave, California. It is organized as a not-for-profit educational institute under California state law and is governed by a board of trustees. NTPS is one of the seven test-pilot schools worldwide recognized by the international Society of Experimental Test Pilots, giving pilot graduates of NTPS instant initial acceptance into their society. In 2016, NTPS became the first test-pilot school in the world to be certified as a Flight Test Authorised Training Organisation by the European Aviation Safety Organization.

Cantil (Spanish for "Stone Cliff") is an unincorporated community in Kern County, California. It is in the Fremont Valley of the western Mojave Desert.