Pituffik Space Base

In 1818, Sir John Ross's expedition made first contact with nomadic Inughuit in the area. James Saunders's expedition aboard HMS North Star was marooned in North Star Bay in 1849–50 and named landmarks. In 1910 explorer Knud Rasmussen established a missionary and trading post there. He called the site "Thule" after classical ultima Thule; the Inuit called it Umanaq or Uummannaq ("heart-shaped"), and the site is commonly called "Dundas" today. Whaling captain, explorer, and ethnologist George Comer discovered a midden, dubbed Comer's Midden, at Umanaq in 1916, and an archaeological excavation subsequently revealed a village of the proto-Inuit who came to be called the Thule people. The United States abandoned its territorial claims in the area in 1917 in connection with the purchase of the Virgin Islands. Denmark assumed control of the village in 1937.

A cluster of huts known as Pituffik ("quay, dock") stood on the wide plain where the base was built in 1951; a main base street was named Pituffik Boulevard. The population was forcibly relocated to Thule. Later in 1953, the USAF planned to construct an air defense site near that village, and in order to limit contact with soldiers, the Danish government again relocated 130 inhabitants of "Old Thule", settling them 97 km (60 mi) north in a newly constructed village also named Thule (colloquially "New Thule", now Qaanaaq).

In a Danish Supreme Court judgment of 28 November 2003, the move was considered an expropriative intervention. During the proceedings, the Danish government recognized that the movement was a serious interference and an unlawful act against the local population. The Thule tribe was awarded damages of 500,000 kroner, and the individual members of the tribe who had been exposed to the transfer were granted compensation of 15,000 or 25,000 kroner each. A Danish radio station continued to operate at Dundas, and the abandoned houses remained. The USAF used that site only for about a decade, and it has since returned to civilian use.

Knud Rasmussen was the first to recognize the Pituffik Plain as ideal for an airport. USAAF Colonel Bernt Balchen, who built Sondrestrom Air Base, knew Rasmussen and his idea. Balchen led a flight of two Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats to Thule on 24 August 1942 and then sent a report advocating an air base to USAAF chief Henry "Hap" Arnold. …

Thule Tracking Station (TTS) is operated by Pituffik Space Base, using the callsign POGO. The station 76°30′57″N 68°36′0″W / 76.51583°N 68.60000°W / 76.51583; -68.60000) is a US Space Force installation in Greenland, near the base, and has a Remote Tracking Station (callsign: Polar Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (POGO)) of the Satellite Control Network.

It was originally the classified 6594th Test Wing's Operating Location 5 designated by Air Force Systems Command on 15 October 1961: the station was operational on 30 March 1962, with "transportable antenna vans parked in an old Strategic Air Command bomb assembly building." The permanent RTS equipment was emplaced in 1964, and a communications terminal was emplaced on Pingarssuit Mountain—Thule Site N-32 (moved to Thule Site J in 1983.

To assist with port operations, Pituffik is home to the only tugboat in the Department of the Air Force, the 71-foot Rising Star (USAF TG-71-9001). In the summertime, the Rising Star escorts fuel tankers and cargo ships, aligns them with the pier, and moves icebergs out of the way as vessels enter North Star Bay. It is also used for sightseeing tours of the surrounding bays and fjords during the summer. In the winter, it is hauled onto shore. In 2020, the tugboat was used to save a sinking ship and its crew of six 50 kilometers (31 mi) south of base, towing the distressed ship back to the port at Pituffik.

In 1954, a Douglas C-124C Globemaster II operated by the US Air Force crashed on approach to the air base, killing ten people.

On 21 January 1968, a B-52G Stratofortress from the 380th Strategic Aerospace Wing, Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York, on a secret airborne nuclear alert crashed and burned on the ice near Thule Air Base. The impact detonated the high explosives in the primary units of all four of the B28 nuclear bombs it carried, but nuclear and thermonuclear reactions did not take place due to the PAL and fail-safe mechanisms in the weapons, thus preventing the actual detonation of the weapons themselves. The resulting fire caused extensive radioactive contamination. More than 700 Danish civilians and US military personnel worked under hazardous conditions, the former without protective gear, to clean up the nuclear material. In 1987, nearly 200 Danish workers tried unsuccessfully to sue the United States. Kaare Ulbak, chief consultant to the Danish National Institute of Radiation Hygiene, said Denmark had carefully studied the health of the Thule workers and found no evidence of increased mortality or cancer.

The United States Department of Defense maintained that all four weapons had been destroyed. Although many of the details of the accident are still classified, some information was released by the US authorities in September 1994 under the Freedom of Information Act. After reviewing these files, an investigative reporter from BBC News claimed in May 2007 that the USAF was unable to account for one of the weapons. In 2009, the assertions of the BBC were refuted by a Danish report after a review of the available declassified documentation.

As of 2010, one airline provided commercial service to Pituffik.

Schuyler Line Navigation Company, a US flag ocean carrier, provides ocean transportation. Schuyler Line operates under a government contract to supply sustainment and building supplies to the base.