The Solid State Phased Array Radar System (SSPARS, colloquially "BMEWS radar network'" as late as 2004) is a

United States Space Force The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and the world's only independent space force. Along with its sister branch, the U.S. Air Force, the Space ...

radar, computer, and communications system for missile warning and space surveillance "at five (5) geographically separated units worldwide including

Beale Air Force Base Beale Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base located approximately east of Marysville, California. It is located outside Linda, about east of the towns of Marysville and Yuba City, and about north of Sacramento. The host ...

, CA,

Cape Cod Space Force Station Cape Cod Space Force Station is a United States Space Force station located in the northwest corner of Joint Base Cape Cod, United States, on Flatrock Hill in Massachusetts. Cape Cod Space Force Station began construction in 1976 as Cape Cod Mi ...

, MA, Clear Space Force Station, AK,

RAF Fylingdales Royal Air Force Fylingdales or more simply RAF Fylingdales is a Royal Air Force station on Snod Hill in the North York Moors, England. Its motto is "Vigilamus" (translates to "We are watching"). It is a radar base and is also part of the Ball ...

, UK, and Thule Airbase, Greenland." SSPARS completed replacement of the RCA 474L Ballistic Missile Early Warning System when the last SSPAR (phased array radar with 2500 "solid state transmitter" modules) was operational at Clear in 2001, the year SSPARS equipment included: * Raytheon AN/FPS-123 PAVE PAWS Radar at Beale (FPS-115 IOC April 4, 1980) and Cape Cod (FPS-115 IOC August 15, 1980) * Raytheon AN/FPS-120 Solid State Phased Array Radar at Thule ("2QFY87") with greater radar capabilities than the FPS-115 PAVE PAWS radars * Raytheon AN/FPS-126 Solid State Phased Array Radar at Fylingdales with three faces for 360 degree coverage (constructed August 1989-October 1992) *Raytheon AN/FPS-120 Solid State Phased Array Radar using an older antenna from the 1987 PAVE PAWS EWR in Texas (groundbreaking April 16, 1998, for the "Clear Radar Upgrade") After the Fylingdales BMEWS radars had been replaced by Raytheon/ Cossor AeroSpace and

Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer firm. CDC was one of the nine major United States computer companies through most of the 1960s; the others were IBM, Burroughs Corporation, DEC, NCR, General Electric, Honeywe ...

(embedded CDC-Cyber computer) at a cost of US $100M, in February 1995 the "missile warning center at Cheyenne Mountain AS asundergoing a $450 million upgrade program". The entire SSPARS became operational on January 31, 2001 when the "SSPARS Site" at Clear AFS (separate from the BMEWS site) had

Initial Operational Capability Initial operating capability or initial operational capability (IOC) is the state achieved when a capability is available in its minimum usefully deployable form. The term is often used in government or military procurement. The United States D ...

. The Clear AN/FPS-120 was subsequently "upgraded to the AN/FPS-123 model" SSPA Radar, and the SSPARS was modified in the Early Warning Radar Service Life Extension Program The US approved sale of an AN/FPS-115 to Taiwan in 2000 and it was introduced in 2006.

AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar

The AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR) is a series of

phased array radar A phaser is an electronic sound processor used to filter a signal, and it has a series of troughs in its frequency-attenutation graph. The position (in Hz) of the peaks and troughs are typically modulated by an internal low-frequency oscilla ...

systems used for long-range early warning and

space surveillance Space domain awareness is the study and monitoring of satellites orbiting the earth. It involves the detection, tracking, cataloging and identification of artificial objects, i.e. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or Space debris, ...

, operating as part of the

United States Missile Defense Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ...

and

Space Surveillance Network The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) detects, tracks, catalogs and identifies artificial objects orbiting Earth, e.g. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris. The system is the responsibility of Uni ...

History

The Solid State Phased Array Radar System began replacing PAVE PAWS when the first AN/FPS-115 face was taken off-line for the radar upgrade. New AN/FPS-123 Early Warning Radars became operational in (Beale) and (Cape Cod) in each base's existing PAVE PAWS "Scanner Building".

The UK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

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 ...

BMEWS stations became SSPARS radar stations when their respective AN/FPS-126 radar and 2001 AN/FPS-120 became operational. In 2007, 100 owners/trustees of amateur radio repeaters near AN/FPS-123 radars were notified to lower their power output to mitigate interference, and AN/FPS-123s were part of the

Air Force Space Surveillance System The AN/FPS-133 Air Force Space Surveillance System, colloquially known as the Space Fence, was a U.S. government multistatic radar system built to detect orbital objects passing over America. It is a component of the U.S. space surveillance n ...

by 2009.

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenue ...

began a 2007 contract for SSPARS maintenance. The SSPARS radar electronics was subsequently upgraded, e.g., the Beale radar and the Fylingales FPS-126 each became an AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR) by Raytheon. The Beale AN/FPS-123 was upgraded to a Raytheon AN/FPS-132 (UEWR) with capabilities to operate in the

Ground-based Midcourse Defense Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) is the United States' anti-ballistic missile system for intercepting incoming warheads in space, during the midcourse phase of ballistic trajectory flight. It is a major component of the American missile de ...

(GMD) ABM system—the Beale UEWR included "Avionics", "T/R modules", "FEX/TTG", "BSG", "Signal Processor", and other changes. After additional UEWR installations for GMD at Thule Site J and the UK (contracted 2003),http://www.radomes.org/museum/documents/CCAFS%20Tri-fold%20Brochure_10Jan08.pdf a 2012 ESD/XRX Request for Information for replacement, and remote operation, of the remaining "PAVE PAWS/BMEWS/PARCS systems" at Cape Cod, Alaska, and North Dakota was issued. The Alaska AN/FPS-132 was contracted in fall 2012 and the Cape Cod installation in 2013.

System overview

Solid-state Solid state, or solid matter, is one of the four fundamental states of matter. Solid state may also refer to: Electronics * Solid-state electronics, circuits built of solid materials * Solid state ionics, study of ionic conductors and their ...

** Each radar installation has multiple faces, where each face provides a 120-degree coverage. * Operating frequency:

Ultra high frequency Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

(UHF) * Range: 3,000 miles

Locations

Active: *

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

* Thule Site J (

Thule Air Base Thule Air Base (pronounced or , kl, Qaanaaq Mitarfik, da, Thule Lufthavn), or Thule Air Base/Pituffik Airport , is the United States Space Force's northernmost base, and the northernmost installation of the U.S. Armed Forces, located north ...

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland ...

Planned: * Clear Space Force Station,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

Qatar long-range radar purchase moves forward
Jeremy Burnie,

Jane's Defence Weekly ''Jane's Defence Weekly'' (abbreviated as ''JDW'') is a weekly magazine reporting on military and corporate affairs, edited by Peter Felstead. It is one of a number of military-related publications named after John F. T. Jane, an Englishman who ...

, 13 December 2016, accessed 2017-01-11

References

{{AN/FPS 1987 in military history 2001 in military history Early warning systems Cold War military computer systems of the United States Equipment of the United States Space Force Radar networks United States Space Surveillance Network