Air Force Space Surveillance System
The Space Detection and Tracking System ( SPADATS ) ( German: Space tracking and object tracking system ) is a system within the air defense of the United States. SPADATS forms a global network with optical and electronic sensors, which was originally funded by the United States Air Force ( USAF), the United States Navy (USN ) and the Canadian Forces Air Defense Command Satellite Tracking Unit with information served. The main task of SPADATS is to create an overview of objects ( spacecraft, space debris, and others) in the near-Earth region and to conduct analyzes on these objects to command levels of the U.S. air defense and other institutions continue. The administrative control over SPADATS first was the Continental Air Command ( CONAD ) of the USAF. In the second half of the 1980s, the name Space Surveillance Network ( SSN ) was used instead of SPADATS from about 1988 in the literature. With this new designation, a technical re-equipment of modern radar systems for object tracking and recognition was connected.
Beginnings of satellite observation
As on 4 October 1957, the first satellite, Sputnik 1, the Soviet Union orbited the Earth, responded members of the USAF Cambridge Research Laboratories on the LG Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts State thereon, in which they on the roof of the laboratory einrichteten an observation station two days later. In December 1958, he commenced the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ), a tracking program of the satellite, which was then passed but after a few months of the USAF. The USAF began in early 1959, codenamed 496L System Program Office (SOP ) designated authority at the Hanscom Field. In the same year there was established the National Space Surveillance Control Center ( NSSCC ), which was put into operation on 1 January 1960. This center with its created Rechenkapzität was the starting point to establish a network of observation stations of satellites and other space projects. In October 1959 it was decided that the USAF, DARPA and the USN should develop a common system that was allowed as a network trajectory tracking of space objects. This system was the starting point for the system SPADATS.
Coordination in the command center of the NORAD
Since December 12, 1957, the North American Aerospace Defense Command ( NORAD ) was in the territory of the Cheyenne Mountain ( U.S. state of Colorado). In June 1960, the computing and data capacity of the SOP of Bedford was moved to the headquarters of NORAD and renamed the system SPACE TRACK. Towards the end of 1960 the Satellite Identification Tracking Unit ( SITU ), which was stationed at Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake the Royal Canadian Air Force ( RCAF ) in the province of Alberta, integrated into the command of NORAD. On 7 November 1960, the operational control of SPADATS at NORAD and the operational command of SPADATS was handed over to CONAD. SPADATS supported the NSSCC, as NORAD took over control of the NSSCC. The main components of SPADATS were in 1960, the system of the USAF SPACE TRACK (codename 496l ) and the system of the USN Space Surveillance ( SPASUR ) ( NAVSPASUR ). These two systems were up to the summer of 1961, still commanded independently by the USAF and USN. On 1 February 1961 the system NAVSPASUR with SPADATS under the operational control of the Commander in Chief, North American Aerospace Defense Command ( CINCNORAD ) was connected.
As the Chief of Staff of the USAF renamed General Thomas D. White, the tasks of surveillance by the Air Research and Development Center (later Air Force Systems Command, AFSC ) handed over on 9 February 1961, the Aerospace Defense Command (ADC ), which was the official date for the establishment of SPADATS. On 14 February 1961, the 1st Aero Space Surveillance and Control Squadron (later renamed the 1st Space Operations Squadron - 1 SOPS ) on the Ent Air Force Base, Colorado Springs situated in the U.S. state of Colorado to refer to the service with the SPADATS prepare Center. The unit also took over the computer control of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System ( BMEWS ) and the screen control in NORAD. On March 14, 1961 the NSSCC was renamed SPADATS Center.
The electronic catalog in NORAD for man-made space objects was created as part of SPADATS on 1 July 1961.
SPADATS was handed over to the devel Air Force Base on July 3, 1961. The SPADATS Center and the SPACE TRACK Center were merged at this time. In March 1964, the Cheyenne Mountain Task Force recommended to relocate the space surveillance in the deep protected area of Cheyenne Mountain. This recommendation was implemented until February 6, 1967, when the Cheyenne Mountain Complex was put into operation. This also SPADATS was moved from the devel Air Base in Cheyenne Mountain. In the following years until 1971 SPADATS were connected more and more sensor systems to take on new responsibilities for early warning against attacks on the United States. From 1971 to 1998, the transmission times of the sensor systems and the monitoring options for SPADATS were further expanded, so that attacks on U.S. satellites could be monitored and reported. In 1988 the decision was taken to form the Space Surveillance Center (SSC ), which had the task of the global Space Surveillance Network ( SSN ) coordinate. In August 2007, the SSC was transferred to the Vandenberg Air Force Base and the SSC was renamed the Joint Space Operations Center ( JSPOC ). The executive unit of the USAF concerning the orders of the SSN was based on the 1st Space Control Squadron of the USAF Space Command ( AFSC ). The unit worked in five groups around the clock, 365 days a year. In 2006, more than 100,000 observations were made for objects in a single day by satellite. On 9 June 2008, the unit ceased their service, wherein the members of the unit have been transferred to the 614th Air and Space Operations Center.
Device systems
The first military beginnings in the United States for the observation of space objects in near-Earth region began in 1957 with the project mini track for tracking the movement of satellites. From 1960 to the beginning of the 1990s there was a worldwide network of Baker - Nunn cameras that were used for space observation and could provide data to SPADATS. Most stations were taken 1960-1977 in operation. The camera stations were located at the USAF sand Iceland in the Pacific, Jupiter, Florida, on the USAF base Edwards in California, at St. Margarets, New Brunswick and at Cold Lake ( Alberta) in Canada, at Pulmosan in South Korea, at San Vito in Italy, on the Mount John in New Zealand, near Santiago in Chile and Harestua in Norway. A further twelve camera stations of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory provided data on SPADATS.
Ground-based Electro- Optical Deep Space Surveillance ( GEODSS )
The GEODSS from 1982 brought a significant improvement of data transmission for SPADATS, with three observation systems have been set up: one on Diego Garcia, one on Maui, Hawaii, and another plant in Socorro, New Mexico.Zeichneten the Baker - Nunn cameras nor the observations on movies on, as were the GEODSS stations with television cameras and computer-based data transfer. A station could be observed up to 200 objects at night. However, the observation stations for a few hours at night were able to work only in good weather. In the 1990s, all GEODSS systems in the context of upgrade programs such as GEODSS Modification Program (GMP ) and Deep STARE were upgraded.
Radar systems
Early 1970s possessed SPADATS by its information systems SPACE TRACK and U.S. Naval Space Surveillance System ( NAV SPASUR ) first high-performance radar systems that were suitable for object tracking and recognition. In the identification of the space objects used by a catalog stored frequency patterns. The USAF began during these years been a systems with phase -controlled field radar ( Phased Array Radar ).
From 1970, following Radarsteme were used at various bases worldwide within SPACE TRACK.
- AN/GPS-10 at Ko Kha in Thailand
- AN/FPS-17 at Shemya, Alaska and Diyarbakir in Turkey
- AN/FPS-49 at Thule in Greenland and Fylingdales in the United Kingdom ( GB)
- AN/FPS-50 at Thule in Greenland, at Clear in Alaska and at Fylingdales in the UK
- AN/FPS-79 in Diyarbakir in Turkey
- AN- FPS -80 on Shemya Iceland
- AN/FPS-85 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida
- AN/FPS-92 at Clear in Alaska
- AN/FPS-99 at Clear in Alaska