Keweenaw Credit - © Mark Wade

In 1962 the University of Michigan proposed a launch site near the center of the North American continen. This would fill in a gap in the US Army's Meteorological Rocket Network. Following a survey of available sites a location on the Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior was selected. The state of Michigan provided a $ 52,850 grant, a local lumber company donated land, and construction of the austere facility began in the summer of 1964. The site was to be mainly used in the winter, in order not to endanger shipping on the lake. The first launches were made from a portable telescoping tower of Arcas rockets in August of the same year. From 1965-1966 the site was used for US Navy experiments with WEBROC. This was a concept of encapsulated Mighty Mouse rockets that would be housed in unattended buoys and launched at intervals to obtain weather information in remote areas of the world's oceans. This was extended to project Nomad in 1968-1969, which tested a ten tonne buoy with 60 Mighty Mouse launchers. Finally in 1970-1971 NASA launched two Nike-Apache rockets from the site, which was the literal apogee of its use. The University's proposals to NASA to expand use of the site, including using surplus Redstone rockets for orbital launches northwards over Canada, were not funded. The site was never used again.

• 1964 Aug? - Aeronomy mission? Launch Vehicle: Arcas. Apogee: 60 km (37 mi).

• 1964 August 6 12:07 - Aeronomy mission Launch Vehicle: Arcas. Arcas Weather Apogee: 66 km (41 mi).

• 1964 Sep? - Aeronomy mission? Launch Vehicle: Arcas. Apogee: 60 km (37 mi).

• 1964 Sep? - Aeronomy mission? Launch Vehicle: Arcas. Apogee: 60 km (37 mi).

• 1964 September 14 - Aeronomy mission? Launch Vehicle: Arcas. Apogee: 60 km (37 mi).

• 1971 January 29 17:03 - Ionosphere mission Launch Vehicle: Nike Apache. Nike Apache NASA 14.167GI Apogee: 132 km (82 mi).

• 1971 January 31 13:55 - Ionosphere mission Launch Vehicle: Nike Apache. Nike Apache NASA 14.373GI Apogee: 185 km (114 mi).

• McDowell, Jonathan, Jonathan's Space Home Page, Harvard University, 1997-present. Jonathan McDowell's complete on-line listing of all objects orbited and over 20,000 rocket launches Accessed at: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html.

• Swanson, Glen E, Spaceport Michigan, . Accessed at: http://www.gt.org/keweenaw-rocket-base/spcprtmi.html.