Ground station of US antimissile defense to open in UK
JUN 20, 2011
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.025399
Guardian : After costing more than $10 billion and taking nearly two decades to build, the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) ground station outside Harrogate, UK, is ready to go on line, writes Jamie Doward of the Guardian. The ground station, located at a Royal Air Force base, consists of 33 satellite dishes that receive data from SBIRS’s four satellites 39â000 km above Earth. The satellites are designed to detect hostile missile launches. Tracking the missiles is the job of a second space-based system, the Space Tracking and Surveillance System, which is under construction. The UK-based element of SBIRS is controversial because it could itself become the target of a missile attack.
© 2011 American Institute of Physics
