BAE Systems to upgrade, maintain, and operate long-range missile-defense radar system
PETERSON AFB, Colo., 27 May 2016.Radar experts at BAE Systems will maintain, upgrade, and operate a global distributed radar network in place to provide missile defense and early warning of enemy ballistic missile launches and potential threats in space.
Officials of the U.S. Air Force 21st Contracting Squadron at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., announced a $49.6 million contract Thursday to the BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services segment in Rockville, Md., to manage, operate, maintain and logistically support the Solid State Phased Array Radar Systems (SSPARS).
These radar systems -- once referred to as the Phased Array Warning System (PAVE PAWS) and the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) -- is a radar, computer, and communications system for missile warning and space surveillance.
SSPARS sites are located at five separate locations: Beale Air Force Base, Calif.; Cape Cod, Air Force Station, Mass.; Clear Air Force Station, Alaska; Royal Air Force Station Fylingdales, England; and Thule Air Base, Greenland.
Air Force radar experts have been considering technology refresh for the front-end and remoting capabilities of those radar systems, and have received significant upgrades to their data- and signal-processing subsystems.
The SSPARS is a ground-based radar system that provides U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb., with warning and attack-assessment information on all intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) launched throughout the world that might be headed for U.S. territory.
The system also helps warn USSTRATCOM and NATO authorities of submarine- and sea-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) attacks and provides data to help evaluate the severity of ballistic missile attacks.
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A sister system -- the Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System (PARCS) is a large radar installation in North Dakota that provides ballistic missile warning and attack assessment, as well as space surveillance data to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., as well as to USSTRATCOM and regional combatant commanders.
On this contract BAE Systems will do the work at Beale Air Force Base; Cape Cod Air Force Station; Clear Air Force Station; Thule Air Base; and Royal Air Force Fylingdales, and will be finished by August 2017.
For more information contact BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services online at www.baesystems.com.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
