US Air Force Eastern Test Range, Ascension Island

Saint Helena / Ascension / Georgetown /
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Main Base for United States forces, Ascension Island.

ags.ou.edu/~bweaver/Ascension/usbase.htm
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Range
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   7°57'0"S   14°24'31"W

Comments

  • Lot's of speculation about the antennas on Ascension. Most were plased here in support of the space program. This island was a critical NASA site. The only military to be seen were administrative and air crew (and the occasional geodetic surveyor from Patrick AFB, FL!!!) It is a great island to visit and explore. Green mountain dominates but there are interesting cones and flows everywhere.
  • Not sure what the speculation is that you mention. I lived and worked in radar on Ascension from 1975 to 1993. In the referenced pic above, the two dishes seen are on Cat Hill as viewed from Red Hill. The building was originally a small FPS-16 radar site that replaced the earlier Mod II radar previously located on Cross Hill. The FPS-16 was shut down in 1977 when the TPQ-18 radar was built on COTAR hill (I should say rebuilt, since it previously existed in the 1960s) . Cat Hill was subsequently used for a Satcom site (left dish in pic) and a GPS ground station (right dish in pic) with the instrumentation for both housed in the original building. At the time I left, they were digging the foundation for a larger new consolidated radar site on COTAR hill to replace the TPQ-18, but I never did see that except on Google Maps. And of course there was TTR, the FPQ-15 radar at Pyramid Point that I called home much of the time. All supported the AFETR and TTR also supported ADCOM. The NASA site was a separate non-military site on the east end of the island near Letterbox and closed down around 1983 or 1984. Incidentally, the Cat Hill building and most of the other original buildings on Ascension were built in 1959 by my childhood next door neighbor in Tampa... Paul H Smith, co-owner of Smith-Carr construction company. A few of the oldest employees on base will still remember him if they are still alive. The British also had antennas on the island at Donkey Flats. They were run by British Cable and Wireless and were satellite communications antennas. During the Falklands war, the Brit military also temporarily installed a small search radar in the saddle between the peaks on Green Mountain. There was also a small French radar that operated near Two Boats at times in support of the ESA.
  • Joe (guest) I was on the team which installed the TPQ-18 in 1963. We packed up the nine shelters on Antigua for C-133 transport to Ascension. A new FPQ-6 at Antigua kept the antenna pedestal; a new pedestal was airlifted from RCA Moorestown, New Jersey for the Ascension radar.
  • I was initially scheduled for the FPS-16 installation on Ascension in 1959 but another RCA employee accepted the assignment and I was assigned to install FPS-16 radars on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
  • Wow. A 'blast from the past' for me. I was stationed at the air base for Bendix Field Engineering. I was a technician at the NASA tracking station from 1980-81. I remember Georgetown, Two Boats, and of course the infamous Golf course. (sand greens and cinder fairways - it's even worse than it sounds!) A lot has changed, but a lot is still the same.
This article was last modified 15 years ago