Eldorado Air Force Station located south of

San Angelo, Texas San Angelo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Tom Green County, Texas, United States. Its location is in the Concho Valley, a region of West Texas between the Permian Basin to the northwest, Chihuahuan Desert to the southwest, Osage Plai ...

was one of the four unique AN/FPS-115

PAVE PAWS PAVE PAWS (PAVE Phased Array Warning System) is a complex Cold War early warning radar and computer system developed in 1980 to "detect and characterize a sea-launched ballistic missile attack against the United States". With the first solid-st ...

, early-warning

phased-array radar In antenna theory, a phased array usually means an electronically scanned array, a computer-controlled array of antennas which creates a beam of radio waves that can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving th ...

systems. The

8th Space Warning Squadron The United States Air Force's 8th Space Warning Squadron is an Air Force Reserve missile warning unit located at Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado. The 8th works alongside its active duty counterpart, the 2d Space Warning Squadron, on the Defe ...

21st Space Wing The 21st Space Wing (21 SW) was the United States Space Force's ground–based missile warning and space control wing. The 21st Space Wing was assigned to Space Operations Command and headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. The 21st ...

, Air Force Space Command operated at

Eldorado El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...

Air Force Station. The Station was associated with

Goodfellow Air Force Base Goodfellow Air Force Base is a nonflying United States Air Force base located in San Angelo, Texas, United States. As part of Air Education and Training Command, Goodfellow's main mission is cryptologic and intelligence training for the Air Forc ...

, north, and was part of the

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...

at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex command structure.

History

Construction of Eldorado Air Force Station began shortly after site selection for the four PAVE PAWS arrays was completed in 1983, with the station achieving its Initial Operational Capacity (IOC) in May 1986 and becoming fully operational in 1987. As the likelihood of sea-based missile attacks from the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

decreased, and with the low probability of missile attacks from the South, the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

decided to close the southern-facing

sites at Robins Air Force Base and Eldorado,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. After closure in 1995 one radar face from Eldorado AFS, along with another from the closed Robins Air Force Base site were moved to

Clear Air Force Station Clear Space Force Station is a United States Space Force radar station for detecting incoming ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles to NORAD's command center and to provide Space Surveillance data to the United States Space Force. Cle ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

as part of the

BMEWS 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 ra ...

upgrade in 1998.

Units Stationed

* 8th Missile Warning Squadron (1987-1995)

Current status

As of 2006 the station was in mothballs awaiting possible future re-activation.

References

External links

FAS's Eldorado Air Force Station site

Article by Eldorado TX resident on simulating the effect of a nuclear attack on the Eldorado AFS
{{coord, 30, 58, 44.68, N, 100, 33, 9.59, W, display=title Installations of the United States Air Force in Texas 1987 establishments in Texas 1995 disestablishments in Texas Military installations closed in 1995 Radar stations of the United States Air Force Military installations established in 1987