North American Aerospace Defense Command - History

History

Recommended by the Joint Canadian-U.S. Military Group in late 1956, approved by the United States JCS in February 1957, and announced on August 1, 1957; the "establishment of command headquarters" was on September 12, 1957, at Ent Air Force Base's 1954 blockhouse. The 1958 international agreement designated the NORAD commander always be a US officer (Canadian vice commander), and "RCAF officers…agreed the command's primary purpose would be…early warning and defense for SAC's retaliatory forces." DoD realignments for the NORAD command organization had begun by November 15 (e.g., ARADCOM), and in late 1958, Canada and the U.S. started the "Continental Air Defense Integration, North (CADIN)", for the SAGE air defense network.

Canada's NORAD bunker with a SAGE AN/FSQ-7 computer was constructed 1959-63, and each of the USAF's 8 smaller AN/FSQ-8s provided NORAD with data and could command the entire US air defense. The RCAF's 1950 "ground observer system, the Long Range Air Raid Warning System," was discontinued and on January 31, 1959, the US Ground Observation Corps was deactivated. The Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker's planned mission was expanded in August 1960 to "a hardened center from which CINCNORAD would supervise and direct operations against space attack as well as air attack" (NORAD would be renamed North American Aerospace Defense Command in March 1981). The Secretary of Defense assigned on October 7, 1960, "operational command of all space surveillance to Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) and operational control to North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)".

By the early 1960s, about 250,000 personnel were involved in the operation of NORAD, and the "joint SAC-NORAD exercise…Sky Shield II"--and on 2 September 1962--"Sky Shield III" were conducted for mock penetration of NORAD sectors. The JCS placed the Ent AFB Space Detection and Tracking System (496L System with "Philco 2000/Model 212" computer) "under the operational control of CINCNORAD on December 1, 1960"; during Cheyenne Mountain construction, NORAD command center operations at Ent AFB moved to the 1963 Chidlaw Building's partially underground "Combined Operations Center" for Aerospace Defense Command and NORAD. In 1966, ESD turned the Combat Operations Center at Cheyenne Mountain over to NORAD on January 1, and the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex was accepted on February 8. The NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex Improvements Program (427M System)became operational in 1979 and by 1982, a NORAD Off-site Test Facility was located at Peterson AFB.

Following the 1979 Joint US-Canada Air Defense Study, the command structure for air defense was changed, e.g., "SAC assumed control of ballistic missile warning and space surveillance facilities" on December 1, 1979. The Aerospace Defense Command major command ended in 1980 and its organizations in Cheyenne Mountain became the "ADCOM" specified command under the same commander as NORAD, e.g., HQ NORAD/ADCOM J31 manned the Space Surveillance Center. The DEW Line was to be replaced with the North Warning System (NWS); the Over-the-Horizon Backscatter (OTH-B) radar was to be deployment; more advanced fighters were deployed, and Airborne Warning and Control System|AWACS aircraft were planned for greater use. These recommendations were accepted by the governments in 1985. The United States Space Command was formed in September 1985 as an adjunct but not a component of NORAD.