The US has been keeping watch on the objects orbiting overhead since the 1960s, but Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command has just dropped a bombshell in a recently leaked memo. The Air Force Space Surveillance System, or Space Fence, is to be shut down as of October 1st. If the shutdown goes through, the US will lose 40% of its orbital tracking system.
The Space Fence is currently operated by Five Rivers Services in Colorado, and consists of 2-miles of VHF radar arrays in the southern US, along with six receiving stations. Two other receiving stations were placed in cold storage earlier this year due to budget constraints, which is what has led the Air Force to can the whole project.
The Space Fence is the only system we have that can track satellites and space debris up to 24,000 kilometers high, and it also does “uncued tracking.” That means the Space Fence array can detect multiple objects without being tasked to scan a particular region — it basically watches the entire sky over the United States. The Space Fence is capable of tracking objects the size of a basketball, which is pretty amazing when you consider this is technology from the 1960s.
The end of the Space Fence program has been a long time coming, but a replacement was supposed to be in the works. However, the federal budget sequester earlier this year has triggered a wide-ranging Pentagon audit that caused the project to be put on hold.
Technically none of this is official, and Five Rivers Services is not saying anything. It’s possible the system will be saved at the last minute, but a more efficient replacement is still a long way off.
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