Missile Warning Center


The Missile Warning Center is a center that provides missile warning and defense for United States Space Command's Combined Force Space Component Command, incorporating both space-based and terrestrial sensors. The MWC is located at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station.

Mission

The Missile Warning Center coordinates, plans, and executes worldwide missile, nuclear detonation, and space re-entry event detection to provide timely, accurate, and unambiguous strategic warning in support of the United States and Canada.

History

During deployment of the computerized air defense network for the United States, the Soviet Union announced that they had successfully tested an ICBM. BMEWS General Operational Requirement 156 was issued on November 7, 1957 and on February 4, 1958; the USAF informed Air Defense Command that BMEWS was an "all-out program" and the "system has been directed by the President, has the same national priority as the ballistic missile and satellite programs and is being placed on the Department of Defense master urgency list." The subsequent plan by June 1958 for a US Zone of the Interior facility for anti-ICBM fire control by Air Defense Command was for it to be "the heart of the entire ballistic missile defense system" with Nike Zeus SAMs. On 19 October 1959, HQ USAF assigned ADC the "planning responsibility" for eventual operation of the Missile Defense Alarm System to detect ICBM launches with infrared sensors in space.

1960 Ent AFB CC&DF

The BMEWS Central Computer and Display Facility built as an austere facility instead of the planned AICBM control center became operational on September 30, 1960, at Ent AFB when BMEWS' Thule Site J became operational. Site J's computers processed 4 RCA AN/FPS-50 Radar Sets' data, and alerts transferred via the BMEWS Rearward Communications System to the CC&DF for NORAD attack assessment and warning to RCA Display Information Processors at the NORAD/CONAD command center, SAC's Offutt AFB nuclear bunker, and The Pentagon's new National Military Command Center. DIPs presented impact ellipses and drove a "threat summary display" with a count of incoming missiles and a countdown of "Minutes Until First Impact" In July 1961 separate from the CC&DF, the surveillance center in New Hampshire "was discontinued as the new SPADATS Center became operational at Ent AFB" with the 496L Space Detection and Tracking System. In 1962 the Army's LIM-49 Nike Zeus program was assigned the satellite intercept mission, and the 1962 SECDEF assigned the USAF to develop the Satellite Intercept System which would use orbit data from a Space Defense Center. By December 15, 1964, NORAD had an implementation plan for a "Single Integrated Space Defense Center" for NORAD/CONAD to centralize both missile warning and space surveillance.

1967 Space Defense Center

The 1st Aero on February 6, 1967, moved operations to the Group III Space Defense Center, the integrated missile warning/space surveillance facility at the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker Interim operations of the Avco 474N SLBM Detection and Warning System began in July 1970, and in 1972 20% of the Bendix AN/FPS-85 Phased Array Radar's surveillance capability "became dedicated to search for SLBMs".

1975 NORAD/ADCOM center

The NORAD/CONAD Missile Warning Center came under NORAD/ADCOM control in 1975 when the unified Continental Air Defense Command ended and in early 1972, the 427M improvement program was planned; e.g., After SAC assumed control of ballistic missile warning and space surveillance facilities on December 1, 1979, the MWC was in the same room as HQ NORAD/ADCOM J31's Space Surveillance Center The "NORAD Missile Warning and Space Surveillance System" was the general term for the entire network applied by the House's 1981 Armed Services Committee—the Core Processing Segment handled missile warning/space surveillance with three Honeywell H6080 computers, e.g., a NORAD Computer System H6080 for command and control and for missile warning functions. Circa 1986, the "missile and space surveillance and warning system" consisted of a space computational center and 5 sensor systems:
By 1981 Cheyenne Mountain was providing 6,700 messages per hour compiled via sensor inputs from the Joint Surveillance System, BMEWS, the SLBM "Detection and Warning System, COBRA DANE, and PARCS as well as SEWS and PAVE PAWS". During the 1991 Gulf War, the missile operations section that supported the MWC processed SCUD missile detections and interceptions for theater warning units. The Space and Warning Systems Center maintained "26 stovepipe systems" for USSPACECOM, NORAD, and AFSPC, and the Space Computational Center was replaced in 1992.
In February 1995, "the missile warning center at Cheyenne Mountain AS undergoing a $450 million upgrade program as part of Cheyenne Mountain's $1.7 billion renovation package." At Cheyenne Mountain on September 11, 2001, Major Richard J. Hughes was the Missile Warning Center Commander and the Chief of the J7 Exercise Branch. In 2003, construction began for a new command center at Cheyenne Mountain to include Ground-Based Midcourse Defense—the "new Missile Correlation Center" was to have new consoles, mission system connectivity and communications capabilities.

Missile Correlation Center

The Missile Correlation Center and Space Control Center were in Cheyenne Mountain by March 4, 2005 when Patrick Mullin was the commander of the MCC, which by 2006 was receiving input from five Joint Tactical Ground Stations.

Missile Warning Operations Center

The 2006-8 Cheyenne Mountain Realignment divided MCC operations into NORAD/NORTHCOM's Missile and Space Domain at Peterson AFB and STRATCOM's facility in Cheyenne Mountain USSTRATCOM announced a 2007 plan to relocate the MWOC from Cheyenne Mountain to Schriever AFB In May 2010, USSTRATCOM decided to keep its missile warning center at Cheyenne Mountain, which had begun a $2.9 million renovation in January 2010