Globus II

Globus II is a controversial radar station located in Vardø, Norway, near the Russian border.

Contents

1 Purpose and use
2 Controversy
3 Administration and funding
4 Technical data
5 References

Purpose and use

The radar is administrated by the Norwegian National Intelligence Service who state the radar is used for[Globus II] from the Norwegian National Intelligence Service (in Norwegian):

Space surveillance
Surveillance of areas of national interest abroad
Gather information of interest to research and development

It was previously known as "Have Stare"[Raytheon website describing "Have Stare"] and located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The radar was made by Raytheon who previously described it on their website as a radar "originally designed to collect intelligence data against ballistic missiles". The website has since then been removed by request of the Pentagon[Uncovering Vardø].

The radar is believed to have similar capabilities as the newer American Sea-Based X-Band Radar used in the Anti-ballistic missile system.

Controversy

When the radar was built the Norwegian official statement was that it was going to be used to monitor objects in space. Such objects include satellites and space debris. This information was to be added to the orbital database provided by the US Space Command.

In April 1998 a Norwegian journalist, Inge Sellevåg, from the daily newspaper Bergens Tidende discovered that NASA had no knowledge of a new radar being added to the system. This led him to suspect it had other purposes and Mr. Sellevåg discovered that it was also going to be used for national purposes such as intelligence gathering .

In 2000, during a storm, the Radome was torn off and uncovered the radar-dish[How A Storm Spread A Cold War Chill]. At that time the it was pointing directly towards Russia. A local newspaper editor commented: "I'm not an expert, but I thought space was in the sky.". Official comments claimed that the radar was still being tested and that it pointed towards Russia was a pure coincidence.

Today, it is believed that Globus II has an important role in the US anti-ballistic missile system. Located near the Russian border it is highly capable of monitoring and building a signature database of Russian missiles. This has led to even more controversy, including a series of official complaints by Russia.

Administration and funding

The radar is administered by the Norwegian National Intelligence Service. It is however believed to be connected to the US radar network. Although the cost of the radar is secret it is belived to have cost more than 100 million US dollars and that it was financed by the United States. The Norwegian intelligence service claims that it is operated by Norwegian personnel only and that data is not transferred real-time. What is to be considered real-time is however disputed as such radar-stations collect too much information for it to be transferred live. Instead, information is typically automatically filtered on location and transferred in batches every 30-90 second.

Technical data

Uses a Cassegrain reflector
Operates at 10 GHz (X-band)
Capable of "seeing" approximately 40000km
Can distinguish between small objects (1-10cm)
The parabolic reflector has a diameter of 27 meters
The radome is made of Teflon and has a diameter of 35 meters

References

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.