PAVE PAWS Radar - Cape Cod

Perched high atop Flatrock Hill near the quiet Massachusetts town of Sandwich stands a PAVE PAWS radar station. The pyramid-shaped facility rests on the 100-acre Cape Cod AFS and is home to Air Force Space Command's 6th Missile Warning Squadron. The radar looms 10 stories high against the backdrop of New England's rolling hills. The mission of the approximately 200 people who man the radar, is to date and track sea-launched ballistic missiles heading for North America. They also use the radar to track satellites in orbit, transmitting spacetrack data into the Space Surveillance Center at Cheyenne Mountain. At the operational heart of the Cape Cod facility is the Missile Warning Operations Center where AFSPACECOM and Canadian crews monitor consoles around-the-clock which display tracking data. Crews consisting of a crew commander, crew chief and a space console operator use the data to warn of potential attacks on North America.