PAVE PAWS

The PAVE Phased Array Warning System (PAVE PAWS) was a Cold War system of computer and radar equipment developed to "detect and characterize a sea-launched ballistic missile attack against the United States". With the first solid-state phase-scanned array deployed, the system at the perimeter of the contiguous United States used a pair of Raytheon AN/FPS-115 Radar Sets at each site (2 sites in 1980, then 2 more used 1987–95) as part of the United States Space Surveillance Network.

Background

Fixed-reflector radars with mechanically-scanned beams such as the 1955 GE AN/FPS-17 Fixed Ground Radar and 1961 RCA AN/FPS-50 Radar Set were deployed for missile tracking, and the USAF tests of modified AN/FPS-35 mechanical radars at Virginia and Pennsylvania SAGE radar stations had "marginal ability" to detect Cape Canaveral missiles in summer 1962. A Falling Leaves mechanical radar in New Jersey built for BMEWS successfully tracked a missile during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and "an AN/FPS-85 long-range phased array (Passive electronically scanned array) radar was constructed at Eglin AFB"Site C-6, Florida beginning on 29 October 1962 (the Bendix Radio Division's FPS-85 contract had been signed 2 April 1962.) Early military phased array radars were also deployed for testing: Bendix AN/FPS-46 Electronically Steerable Array Radar (ESAR) at Towson, MD (powered up in November 1960),White Sands' Multi-function Array Radar (1963), and the Kwajalein Missile Site Radar (1967).