Cobra Dane

The AN/FPS-108 Cobra Dane radar is an air and space surveillance radar of the United States Air Force and is located on the Eareckson Air Force Base on Shemya Iceland, Alaska.

History

It was the mid-seventies designed to monitor Soviet missile tests and starts on the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1977 and took its operation on. The radar system was an important link in the chain of custody of the North American Aerospace Defense Command to detect approaching Soviet ICBMs. Today, it also monitors space debris for the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office.

Technology

Cobra Dane is designed as a phased array antenna of 29 meters measured mirror is made up of 15,360 transmission and 19,408 receiving elements. The 15,360 twelve centimeters transmitters have a maximum total capacity of 15.4 megawatts, the average power of the plant is 0.92 MW at a frequency 1215-1400 MHz. Objects can thus be detected at a distance of about 3,000 kilometers, in space, up to a distance of 40,000 kilometers.