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, 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, 21st Space Wing,

Air Force Space Command The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

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, north, and was part of the NORAD at the

Cheyenne Mountain Complex The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a 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 o ...

command structure.

History

Construction of Eldorado Air Force Station began shortly after site selection for the four PAVE PAWS

arrays An array is a systematic arrangement of similar objects, usually in rows and columns. Things called an array include: {{TOC right Music * In twelve-tone and serial composition, the presentation of simultaneous twelve-tone sets such that the ...

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 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 the United ...

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 Aerial warfare, air military branch, 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 ...

decided to close the southern-facing PAVE PAWS sites at

Robins Air Force Base Robins Air Force Base is a major United States Air Force installation located in Houston County, Georgia, United States. The base is located just east of the city of Warner Robins, south-southeast of Macon and approximately south-southeast o ...

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