| Cheyenne Mountain Directorate | |
|---|---|
| Part of North American Aerospace Defense Command | |
| Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States | |
 |
|
| Type | Operations facility |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: |
| Built | June 1961 – February 1966 |
| Construction materials |
Steel, 3/8-inch continuously welded low carbon steel plates, reinforced concrete bulkheads, baffled steel |
| In use | April 20, 1966 – present |
| Current condition |
"warm stand-by" July 28, 2006 |
| Controlled by | United States Air Force |
| Garrison | Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station |
| Cheyenne Mountain | |
|---|---|
| Elevation | 9,565 ft (2,915 m) |
| Location | Colorado, United States |
| Range | Front Range, Rocky Mountains |
| Coordinates | |
Cheyenne Mountain is a mountain located on the southwest side of Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, and is home to the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station[1] and its Cheyenne Mountain Directorate, formerly known as the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC). The City of Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the County seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. Events 1303 - The University of Rome La Sapienza is instituted by Pope Boniface VIII. Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. Events 1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of Treason. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. In topography a summit is a point on a surface which is higher in Elevation than all points immediately adjacent to The State of Colorado ( or chiefly by nonresidents) is a state located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A mountain range is a chain of Mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by passes or valleys The Front Range is a Mountain range of the Rocky Mountains of North America that is located in the north-central portion of the U Mountain peaks of the Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a Mountain range in western North America. A geographic coordinate system enables every location on the Earth to be specified in three coordinates using mainly a spherical coordinate system. The City of Colorado Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the County seat and most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, The United States of America —commonly referred to as the
During the Cold War and continuing to today, the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center and Cheyenne Mountain Directorate collect data from a worldwide system of satellites, radars, and other sensors and process that information in real time. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the Operations are conducted around the year in the Air Warning Center, Missile Correlation Center, Operational Intelligence Watch, Systems Center, Weather Center, and the Command Center.
While the functions of the Space Control Center have moved to Vandenberg Air Force Base and there are plans to move remaining operations to nearby Peterson Air Force Base, NORAD continues to conduct day-to-day operations in Cheyenne Mountain and upon a final move to Peterson Air Force Base will maintain the Cheyenne Mountain Directorate for use in the event of an emergency. Vandenberg Air Force Base is a United States military installation with a Spaceport, in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Peterson Air Force Base is a base of the United States Air Force located at Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, Peterson Air Force Base is a base of the United States Air Force located at Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado,
The facility is one of the most unusual installations in the world. Apart from the fact that it is housed 2,000 feet (600 m) into the mountain, it is also notable in that it is a joint and binational military organization comprising over 200 men and women from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Canadian Forces. A foot (plural feet or foot; symbol or abbreviation ft or sometimes &prime – the prime symbol) is a non-SI unit The metre or meter is a unit of Length. It is the basic unit of Length in the Metric system and in the International The United States Army is a military organization whose primary mission is to "provide necessary forces and capabilities. The Canadian Forces (CF ( French: Forces canadiennes) are the unified Armed forces of Canada, governed by the National Defence
The mountain is also home to several civilian facilities, including the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is a mountainside Zoo, located southwest of Colorado Springs Colorado on Cheyenne Mountain in the United States. Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun is the Tomb which holds the ashes of Spencer Penrose (1865-1939 a philanthropist who contributed many of the most prominent landmarks
Contents |
History
The Cheyenne Mountain complex traces its origins to 1956, when General Earle E. Partridge, commander of the Continental Air Defense Command, proposed construction of a new underground combat operations center to replace the outgrown and vulnerable above-ground facility at Ent Air Force Base, Colorado. Earle Everard Partridge ( 7 July 1900 in Winchendon Massachusetts - 7 September 1990 in Jupiter Florida) was an United Ent Air Force Base (named for Major General Uzal Girard Ent commander of the Ninth Air Force during World War II was a United States Air Force facility opened in 1951 on the The State of Colorado ( or chiefly by nonresidents) is a state located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America.
The launch of Sputnik I, the world's first man-made satellite, on October 4, 1957, demonstrated not only the accomplishments of the Soviet Union’s space program, but also the capability to launch nuclear warheads from one continent to another. Sputnik 1 ( "Спутник-1", "Satellite-1" ПС-1 ( PS-1, i This article is about artificial satellites For natural satellites also known as moons see Natural satellite. Events 610 - Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas Year 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar) The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 In response, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was established on May 12, 1958.
The Department of Defense started researching potential sites, and determined that Cheyenne Mountain was an ideal site due to its location in the center of the continent, lack of earthquake activity, and proximity to the Air Force Academy and Fort Carson, Colorado. The United States Department of Defense ( DOD or DoD) is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth 's crust that creates Seismic waves Earthquakes are recorded with a Seismometer Fort Carson is a United States Army installation located immediately south of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, and 30 Excavation for the facility began three years later in May of 1961, and was completed in May 1964. The NORAD Combat Operations Center became operational on February 6, 1966, and operations were transferred from Ent Air Force Base on April 20, 1966. Ent Air Force Base (named for Major General Uzal Girard Ent commander of the Ninth Air Force during World War II was a United States Air Force facility opened in 1951 on the
The original requirement for an operations center in Cheyenne Mountain was to provide command and control in support of the air defense mission against the Soviet manned bomber threat, but several events and emerging technologies drove this mission to evolve beyond those initial needs. Anti-aircraft warfare, or air defense, is any method of engaging hostile military Aircraft in defence of ground objectives, ground or naval forces
The development of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the 1960s presented a new threat, and evolved into missile warning and air sovereignty missions taking precedence in the 1960s and 70s. For a brief period in the mid-1970s, the Ballistic Missile Defense Center operated within the Mountain.
Faced with the threat of ballistic attack, and with the advent of larger computer processing capabilities, NORAD developed a series of warning and assessment systems that resulted in the launch of the 427M in 1979. Then, NORAD and the Air Defense Command jointly developed individual acquisition programs that were supposed to resolve operational and sustainment problems. CONAD (all caps redirects here for the Italian supermarket chain see Conad (upper and lower case Aerospace Defense Command (
The Air Force continued to modernize into the 1980s, and had commissioned five acquisition programs to be completed by 1987 at a cost of $968 million. However, it was soon determined that a consolidated upgrade would be much more effective, and the Air Force initiated the Cheyenne Mountain Upgrade (CMU) program in 1989.
CMU contained several major subsystems: Granite Sentry, the Communications System Segment Replacement (CSSR), the Survivable Communications Integration System (SCIS), the Space Defense Operations Center 4, and the Command and Control Processing and Display System Replacement (CCPDS-R). The Air Force also maintained the Alternate Missile Warning Center at Offutt AFB as a fully functional backup program.
After continual delays and escalating costs, the CMU program was determined to be eight years behind schedule and $792 million over budget as of 1994. The initial versions of CMU's subsystems turned out to be unreliable and unresponsive to users' needs, and actually operated parallel to the systems that they were supposed to replace.
Into the 1990s, the Operations Center provided theater ballistic missile warnings during Operation Desert Storm, when Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites looked for the heat from missile and booster plumes and provided warning to civilians and troops in Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Defense Support Program (DSP is a program of the US Air Force that operates the Reconnaissance satellites which form the principal component of the Satellite
In the ensuing years, Cheyenne Mountain became home to elements of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the U. S. Strategic Command, the U. S. Air Force Space Command, and the U. S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). Eight centers supported the NORAD missions of aerospace warning and aerospace control and provided warning of ballistic missile or air attacks against North America.
In 2006, NORAD chose to move the bulk of Cheyenne Mountain's operations to nearby Peterson Air Force Base in order to reduce duplication of function between the two sites. Peterson Air Force Base is a base of the United States Air Force located at Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, On July 28, 2006, NORAD renamed the facility as the Cheyenne Mountain Directorate, and placed the operations center on “warm stand-by,” meaning that the facility will be maintained and ready for use on short notice as necessary, but not used on a daily basis. Events 1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of Treason. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.
Design
The Operations Center itself lies along one side of a main tunnel bored almost a mile through the solid granite heart of the mountain. The tunnel is designed to route the worst of a blast's shock wave out the other end, past the two 25-ton blast doors that mark one wall. The center was designed to withstand up to a 30 megaton blast within 1 nautical mile.
The underground Combat Operations Center (COC) was originally intended to provide a 70% probability of continuing to function if a five-megaton nuclear weapon detonated three miles (5. A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from Nuclear reactions either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. A mile is a unit of Length, usually used to measure Distance, in a number of different systems including Imperial units United States 6 km) away, but was ultimately built to withstand a multimegaton blast within 1. The kilometre ( American spelling: kilometer) symbol km is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to one thousand 5 nautical miles (2. 8 km). The kilometre ( American spelling: kilometer) symbol km is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to one thousand It was also designed to be self-sufficient for brief periods, have backup communications and television intercom with related commands, house personnel during an emergency, and protect staff against fallout and biological and chemical warfare.
The main entrance to the complex is about one-third of a mile (540 m) from the North Portal via a tunnel which leads to a pair of 25-ton steel blast doors. A blast shelter is a place where people can go to protect themselves from Bomb blasts Behind them is a steel building complex built within a 4. 5 acre (18,000 m²) grid of excavated chambers and tunnels and surrounded by 2,000 feet (600 m) of granite. Granite (ˈɡrænɪt is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, Felsic, igneous rock. The main excavation consists of three chambers 45 feet (15 m) wide, 60 feet (20 m) high, and 588 feet (180 m) long, intersected by four chambers 32 feet (10 m) wide, 56 feet (17 m) high and 335 feet (100 m) long. Fifteen buildings, freestanding without contact with the rock walls or roofs and joined by flexible vestibule connections, make up the inner complex. Twelve of these buildings are three stories tall; the others are one and two stories.
The outer shell of the buildings is made of three-eighths-inch (9. 5 mm) continuously welded low carbon steel plates which are supported by structural steel frames. Metal walls and tunnels serve to attenuate electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Metal doors at each building entrance serve as fire doors to help contain fire and smoke. Emphasis on the design of the structure is predicated on the effects of nuclear weapons; however, building design also makes it possible for the complex to absorb the shock of earthquakes. An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth 's crust that creates Seismic waves Earthquakes are recorded with a Seismometer
Blast valves, installed in reinforced concrete bulkheads, have been placed in the exhaust and air intake supply, as well as water, fuel, and sewer lines. A blast valve is used to protect a shelter such as a Fallout shelter or Bunker, from the effects of sudden outside air pressure changes Sensors at the North and South Portal entrances will detect overpressure waves from a nuclear explosion, causing the valves to close and protect the complex. All of the buildings in the complex are mounted on 1,319 steel springs, each weighing about 1,000 pounds (450 kg). The springs allow the complex to move 12 inches (30 cm) in any one direction. To make the complex self-sufficient, adequate space in the complex is devoted to support functions. A dining facility, medical facility with dental office, pharmacy and a two-bed ward; two physical fitness centers with exercise equipment and sauna; a small base exchange and barber shop are all located within the complex. Exercise equipment is any object used in Exercise. This can include Balls Treadmills weights, light benches,stationary bikes
Electricity comes primarily from the city of Colorado Springs, with six 1,750 kilowatt diesel generators for backup.
Water for the complex comes from an underground supply inside Cheyenne Mountain, deposited into four excavated reservoirs with a capacity of 1. 5 million US gallons (6,000 m³) of water. Three serve as industrial reservoirs and the remaining one is the complex’s primary domestic water source. They are so large that workers sometimes cross them in rowboats. About 30,000 to 120,000 US gallons are actually retained at any given time.
Incoming air may be filtered through a system of chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear (CBRN) filters to remove harmful germs and/or radioactive and chemical particles. The fresh air intake is mainly from the south portal access which is 17 ½ feet (5. 3 m) high and 15 feet (4. 6 m) wide and linked to the north portal access which is 22 ½ feet (7 m) high and 29 feet (9 m) wide. The entire tunnel from north to south entry portals is nine-tenths of a mile (1. 5 km) long.
The NORAD command center has been modernized several times over the years. The original equipment resembled Mission Control for NASA's Project Apollo in the 1960s-1970s and used similar Philco-Ford consoles and display systems. Mission Control Center (MCC is a unit that manages aerospace flights Philco, the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company (formerly known as the Spencer Company and later the Helios Electric Company) was a pioneer in early battery The current (2005) version, with ordinary desks and flat-screen displays, looks rather ordinary by comparison and resembles NASA's current (2000s) mission control.
Incidents
Cheyenne Mountain's computers twice produced false alarms of possible nuclear attack. On November 9, 1979 a computer communications device failure caused warning messages to sporadically flash in USAF command posts around the world that a nuclear attack was taking place. Events 694 - Egica, a king of the Visigoths of Hispania, accuses Jews of aiding Muslims sentencing all Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) A similar incident occurred on June 2, 1980 when a technician in NORAD loaded a test tape but failed to switch the system status to "test", causing a stream of constant false warnings to spread to two "continuity of government" bunkers as well as Command Posts worldwide. Events 455 - The Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) Continuity of government ( COG) is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a Government to continue its essential operations in case of nuclear [2]
Both times, Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) had nuclear-loaded planes in the air. Strategic Air Command (SAC) did not take action and took criticism for not following procedure, even though the SAC Command Post knew these were obvious false alarms. The Strategic Air Command (SAC was both a major command and a "specified command" in the U Both Command Posts had recently begun receiving and processing direct reports from the various radar, satellite, and other missile attack detection systems, and those direct reports didn't match anything about the erroneous data received from NORAD. Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range altitude direction or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as Aircraft, ships This article is about artificial satellites For natural satellites also known as moons see Natural satellite.
In popular culture
- In the television series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, Cheyenne Mountain is home to the fictional U. Stargate Atlantis (often abbreviated as SGA) is an American - Canadian Science fiction Television program, part of the S. Stargate Command.
- WarGames is a 1983 suspense film set partly at the NORAD facility at Cheyenne Mountain. WarGames is a 1983 drama / Thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar)
References
- ^ Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station Official website
- ^ Tom Stockman's NORAD False Alarm
This article incorporates text from Cheyenne Mountain Directorate, a public domain work of the United States Government. The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone A work of the United States government, as defined by United States copyright law, is "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U
- McCamley, N. J. Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2002. ISBN 0-85052-746-5
- Colorado Springs Gazette, Cheyenne Mountain’s fate may lie in study contents. June 16, 2006
- NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain Directorate. Accessed May 2, 2007.
- ATS, Cheyenne Mountain and the NORAD Complex. Accessed May 2, 2007.
- Denver Post, Military to put Cheyenne Mountain on standby. Accessed May 2, 2007.
- NORAD, NORAD AND USNORTHCOM change underway. Accessed May 2, 2007.
External links
- New Cheyenne Mountain Directorate Official site
- Cheyenne Mountain Directorate (official site/secure access only)
- Location Map
- My Part in Preventing World War III
- Panoramas of Cheyenne Mountain
See also
- Air Forces Northern National Security Emergency Preparedness Directorate
- List of minor active Air Force Bases
- Looking Glass (airplane)
The Air Forces Northern National Security Emergency Preparedness Directorate (AFNSEP will be operating out of United States Air Force Northern Headquarters at List of minor active Air Force Bases with major commands telephone numbers size location and web site link (Abbreviation codes Air Base (AB Air Force Station (AFS Air Looking Glass (or Operation Looking Glass) is the code name for an airborne command center currently operated by the U
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