The HAVE STARE radar, originally located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, is an X-band 200 kw tracking radar that came on line at Vandenberg during 1995. It can detect small debris in the 1 to 10 cm range, depending on altitude.
The HAVE STARE (HS) radar was transferred from the intelligence budget in FY93 at the direction of Congress. The Air Force has identified a requirement for the HS system and has programmed funding in this program element to complete development and to deploy the system. HS is a high resolution X-band tracking and imaging radar with a 27 meter mechanical dish antenna.
In Mar 95 the system completed a highly successful DT&E at the Vandenberg AFB test site. In Nov 95 AFSPC selected an overseas location for system beddown. Anticipated IOC at this location is FY00. The radar will remain in place at VAFB through FY98 -- during this time the contractor will integrate and test a major software upgrade which will enable the system to support AFSPC's Space Surveillance mission. In conjunction with this latter effort, the Program Office will actively support NMD test demonstrations during ICBM FOT&E launches and perform X-Band Analysis Studies for NMD-Sponsor.
With site preparation at classified overseas operational deployment location planned to beginn in 1996, HS deployed in mid-1999 as a dedicated space surveillance sensor to support the mission of space object catalog maintenance of deep space objects and mission payload assessment. HS retained its original design features and their inherent potential to support other missions. The "classified" location is the Norwegian military intelligence facility in Vardo in Northern Norway (close to the Russian border). Norway and USA jointly financed the project ehich is called "Globus II." Work on the 132-foot-tall radar dome started in April 1998 and be completed in late 2000. It will be operated by Norway's Military Intelligence Service.
This system is currently in the EMD phase leading to an IOC in FY00. If needed, other existing forward-based radars (such as Cobra Dane or HAVE STARE) could also be used to support NMD systems.
HAVE STARE uses Ada83, with displays and controls functionality distributed across several workstations, and track support loops distributed across several general purpose processors with vector processors connected for signal processing. Other distributed processing includes specialized radar control and communications single-board computers, with signal processing performed by several processors within a single "data processor" machine. The HAVE STARE architecture thus consists of the single-board computer controlling the radar, another single-board computer for message processing, a multiprocessor "data processor" for the track loop, mission control, signal processing and data recording, and workstations for displays and controls.
Program Manager: Major Jim Conlon |
DAC: M Gen Tattini |
Contractor: Raytheon Electronics Systems |
Contractor PM: Mr. Arlen Entsminger |