Electronic Systems Center
The Electronic Systems Center was a product center of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. Its mission was to develop and acquire command and control, communications, computer, and intelligence systems. ESC consisted of professional teams specializing in engineering, computer science, and business management. The teams supervised the design, development, testing, production, and deployment of command and control systems. Two of ESC's most well-known developments were the Boeing E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), developed in the 1970s, and the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), developed in the 1980s. The Electronic Systems Center served into five decades as the Air Force's organization for developing and acquiring Command and Control (C2) systems. As of December 2004, ESC managed approximately two hundred programs ranging from secure communications systems to mission planning ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Air Force Systems Command
The Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) is an inactive United States Air Force Major Command. It was established in April 1951, being split off from Air Materiel Command. The mission of AFSC was Research and Development for new weapons systems. AFSC took on engineering functions which formerly resided in the Air Materiel Command (AMC), the Army Air Forces Technical Service Command, and the Air Technical Service Command (ATSC) as a separate research and development command in 1950. It incorporated Air Proving Ground Command in 1957. On 1 July 1992, AFSC and Air Force Logistics Command were merged to form the Air Force Materiel Command, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. In the reorganization of 1961, Air Force Systems Command acquired the materiel procurement function from Air Force Logistics Command. It was re-integrated with Air Force Logistics Command in 1992. History The World War II, Second World War had shown the destructiveness of aerial attack and made Genera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cheyenne Mountain Complex
The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a United States Space Force installation and defensive bunker located in unincorporated El Paso County, Colorado, next to the city of Colorado Springs, at the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, which hosts the activities of several tenant units. Also located in Colorado Springs is Peterson Space Force Base, where the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) headquarters are located. Formerly the center for the United States Space Command (USSC) and NORAD, the Complex monitored the airspace of Canada and the United States for missiles, space systems, and foreign aircraft through its worldwide early-warning system. Since 2008, NORAD and the USSC have been based at Peterson Space Force Base and the complex, re-designated as an Air Force station, is used for crew training and as a back-up command center if required. The military complex has included, in the past, many units of NORAD, US ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ballistic Missile Early Warning System
The RCA 474L Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS, 474L System, Project 474L) was a United States Air Force Cold War early warning radar, computer, and communications system, for ballistic missile detection. The network of twelve radars, which was constructed beginning in 1958 and became operational in 1961, was built to detect a mass ballistic missile attack launched on northern approaches or15 to 25 minutes' warning time also provided Project Space Track satellite data (e.g., about one-quarter of SPADATS observations). It was replaced by the Solid State Phased Array Radar System in 2001. Background The Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) was a radar system built by the United States (with the cooperation of Canada and Denmark on whose territory some of the radars were sited) during the Cold War to give early warning of a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nuclear strike, to allow time for US bombers to get off the ground and land-based U ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nuclear Warhead
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). Yields in the low kilotons can devastate cities. A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than 1.2 megatons of TNT (5.0 PJ). Apart from the blast, effects of nuclear weapons include firestorms, extreme heat and ionizing radiation, radioactive nuclear fallout, an electromagnetic pulse, and a radar blackout. The first nuclear weapons were developed by the Allied Manhattan Project during World War II. Their production continues to require a large scientific and industrial complex, primari ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ballistic Missile
A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are powered only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) typically stay within the Earth's atmosphere, while most larger missiles travel outside the atmosphere. The type of ballistic missile with the greatest range is an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The largest ICBMs are capable of full orbital flight. These missiles are in a distinct category from cruise missiles, which are aerodynamically guided in powered flight and thus restricted to the atmosphere. History One modern pioneer ballistic missile was the A-4, commonly known as the V-2, developed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s under the direction of Wernher von Braun. The first successful launch of a V-2 was on October 3, 1942, and it began operation on September 6, 1944, against Paris, followed by an attack on London two ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Air Traffic Control
Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC is to prevent collisions, organise and expedite the flow of traffic in the air, and provide information and other support for pilots. Personnel of air traffic control monitor aircraft location in their assigned airspace by radar and communicate with the pilots by radio. To prevent collisions, ATC enforces Separation (air traffic control), traffic separation rules, which ensure each aircraft maintains a minimum amount of 'empty space' around it at all times. It is also common for ATC to provide services to all General aviation, private, Military aviation, military, and commercial aircraft operating within its airspace; not just civilian aircraft. Depending on the type of flight and the class of airspace, AT ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Radar
Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, map weather formations, and terrain. The term ''RADAR'' was coined in 1940 by the United States Navy as an acronym for "radio detection and ranging". The term ''radar'' has since entered English and other languages as an anacronym, a common noun, losing all capitalization. A radar system consists of a transmitter producing electromagnetic waves in the radio or microwave domain, a transmitting antenna, a receiving antenna (often the same antenna is used for transmitting and receiving) and a receiver and processor to determine properties of the objects. Radio waves (pulsed or continuous) from the transmitter reflect off the objects and return to the receiver, giving ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Air Defense System
Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched), and air-based weapon systems, in addition to associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries, the main effort has tended to be homeland defense. Missile defense is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. Most modern anti-aircraft (AA) weapons systems are optimized for short-, medium-, or long-range air defence, although some systems may incorporate multiple weapons (such as both autocannons and surface-to-air missiles). 'Layered air defence' usually refers to multiple 'tiers' of air defence systems which, when ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Semi Automatic Ground Environment
The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of mainframe computer, large computers and associated computer network, networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area. SAGE directed and controlled the NORAD response to a possible Soviet air attack, operating in this role from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Its enormous computers and huge displays remain a part of Cold War lore, and after decommissioning were common props in movies such as ''Dr. Strangelove'' and Colossus: The Forbin Project, ''Colossus'', and on science fiction TV series such as ''The Time Tunnel''. The processing power behind SAGE was supplied by the largest discrete component-based computer ever built, the AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central, AN/FSQ-7, manufactured by IBM. Each SAGE Direction Center (DC) housed an FSQ-7 which occupied an entire floor, approximately not including supporting equipment. T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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MITRE
The mitre (Commonwealth English) or miter (American English; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences; both pronounced ; ) is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in traditional Christianity. Mitres are worn in the Catholic Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (IOC), Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church (Jacobites), Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, some Lutheranism, Lutheran churches, for important ceremonies, by the Metropolitan of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, and also, in the Catholic Church, all Cardinal (Catholic Church)#Cardinals who are not bishops, cardinals, whether or not bishops, and some Eastern Orthodox Archpriest#Eastern Christianity, archpriests. Etymology (Ionic Greek, Ionic ) is Greek language, Greek, and means a piece of armour, usually a metal guard worn around the waist and under a cuirass, as menti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |