4950th Test Group
military unit
The 4950th Test Group (Nuclear) is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last was assigned to Air Force Special Weapons Center, stationed at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. It was inactivated on 16 August 1961.
The mission of the unit was to serve as a permanent United States Air Force Air Task Group for atmospheric testing. With the phase-down of atmospheric testing activities as a result of the 1958 moratorium between the United States and Soviet Union, in August 1961 the unit was disestablished.
History
On 1 September 1956, Air Force Special Weapons Command organized the 4950th Test Group (Nuclear) to serve as a permanent USAF Air Task Group for atmospheric nuclear testing. Throughout the remainder of the 1950s, the 4950th Test Group (Nuclear)—as the representative of the USAF—supported the various Nevada and Pacific test series. Nuclear tests supported by the group were:
1957 Operation Plumbob
1957-1958 Project 58, Project 58A
1958 Operation Hardtack I
1958 Operation Argus
1958 Operation Hardtack II
In 1958 a voluntary nuclear test moratorium was being considered, spurred by worldwide concern about the fallout of radionuclides from clouds blown around the Earth after atmospheric tests. In January, the ARDC began a study to determine the effects of a test moratorium on the USAF nuclear capabilities. In August, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed that an international conference be called to discuss permanent suspension of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons testing.
The public source identifies “4950th Test Group” as military unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around 4950th, Test and Group.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4638752. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1958, 1956 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “4950th Test Group” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.