The Groombridge 34 System was a system controlled by the UNSC in 2531. It was the resting place of Construction Platform 966A after the platform was decommissioned. It was here that Spartan-051 went missing after a mission to investigate rebel activity on the platform. Despite exhaustive search efforts from the frigate UNSC Tannenberg and prowler Circumference, they were unable to find him. This was because the stealthy UNSC Point of No Return had already picked him up and left. The operation was a set up to secretly extract Spartan-051 from Naval Special Warfare for a new top-secret mission, the SPARTAN-III program.