Cobra Dane

Night view of the COBRA DANE radar

The AN/FPS-108 COBRA DANE is a PESA phased array radar installation operated by Raytheon for the United States Space Force (originally for the United States Air Force) at Eareckson Air Station on the island of Shemya, Aleutian Islands, Alaska.[1] The system was built in 1976 and brought online in 1977 for the primary mission of gathering intelligence about Russia's ICBM program in support of verification of the SALT II arms limitation treaty. Its single face 29 m (95 ft) diameter phased array radar antenna 52°44′14″N 174°05′29″E / 52.7373°N 174.0914°E / 52.7373; 174.0914 faces the Kamchatka Peninsula and Russia's Kura Test Range. COBRA DANE operates in the 1215–1400 MHz band and can track items as small as a basketball sized drone at distances of several hundred miles.[2]

The "COBRA" designation indicates a general Defense Intelligence program.[3]

  1. ^ "The Missile Defense Agency - MDA - U.S. Department of Defense" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-07-14. Retrieved 2009-02-27.
  2. ^ "AN/FPS-108 COBRA DANE". fas.org. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
  3. ^ Colonel Bill Grimes, U.R. (2014). The History of Big Safari. Archway. p. 454. ISBN 9781480804562.