| North American Aerospace Defense Command | |
|---|---|
Crest of North American Aerospace Defense Command
| |
| Founded | 12 May 1958 (62 years, 1 month) |
| Countries |  United States of America Canada |
| Type | Binational Command |
| Role | The North American Aerospace Defense Command conducts aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning in the defense of North America. |
| Headquarters | Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S. |
| Commanders | |
| Commander | General Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, USAF |
| Deputy Commander | Lieutenant-General Christopher J. Coates, RCAF |
| Chief of Staff | Major General Richard J. Gallant, USA |
| Command Senior Enlisted Leader | SgtMaj Paul McKenna, USMC |
NORAD Regions and Sectors
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD /ˈnɔːræd/), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection for Northern America. Headquarters for NORAD and the NORAD/United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) center are located at Peterson Air Force Base in El Paso County, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The nearby Cheyenne Mountain Complex has the Alternate Command Center. The NORAD commander and deputy commander (CINCNORAD) are, respectively, a United States four-star general or equivalent and a Canadian three-star general or equivalent.
Organization
CINCNORAD maintains the NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colorado. The NORAD and USNORTHCOM
Command Center at Peterson AFB serves as a central collection and
coordination facility for a worldwide system of sensors designed to
provide the commander and the leadership of Canada and the U.S. with an
accurate picture of any aerospace or maritime threat. NORAD has administratively divided the North American landmass into three regions:
- Alaska NORAD (ANR) Region – Eleventh Air Force (11 AF)
- Canadian NORAD (CANR) Region – 1 Canadian Air Division (1 Cdn Air Div)
- Continental U.S. (CONR) Region – First Air Force (1 AF/CONR-AFNORTH)
Both the CONR and CANR regions are divided into eastern and western sectors.
Alaskan NORAD Region
The Alaskan NORAD Region
(ANR) maintains continuous capability to detect, validate and warn off
any atmospheric threat in its area of operations from its Regional
Operations Control Center (ROCC) at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, Alaska.
ANR also maintains the readiness to conduct a continuum of
aerospace control missions, which include daily air sovereignty in
peacetime, contingency and deterrence in time of tension, and active air
defense against manned and unmanned air-breathing atmospheric vehicles
in times of crisis.
ANR is supported by both active duty and reserve units. Active duty forces are provided by 11 AF and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and reserve forces provided by the Alaska Air National Guard. Both 11 AF and the CAF provide active duty personnel to the ROCC to maintain continuous surveillance of Alaskan airspace.
Canadian NORAD Region
Canadian NORAD Region Headquarters is at CFB Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was established on 22 April 1983. It is responsible for providing surveillance and control of Canadian airspace. The Royal Canadian Air Force
provides alert assets to NORAD. CANR is divided into two sectors, which
are designated as the Canada East Sector and Canada West Sector. Both
Sector Operations Control Centers (SOCCs) are co-located at CFB North Bay
Ontario. The routine operation of the SOCCs includes reporting track
data, sensor status and aircraft alert status to NORAD headquarters. In
1996 CANR was renamed 1 Canadian Air Division and moved to CFB Winnipeg.
Canadian air defense forces assigned to NORAD include 409 Tactical Fighter Squadron at CFB Cold Lake, Alberta and 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron at CFB Bagotville, Quebec. All squadrons fly the McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet fighter aircraft.
To monitor for drug trafficking, in cooperation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
and the United States drug law enforcement agencies, the Canadian NORAD
Region monitors all air traffic approaching the coast of Canada. Any
aircraft that has not filed a flight plan may be directed to land and be
inspected by RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency.
Continental United States NORAD Region
The Continental NORAD Region
(CONR) is the component of NORAD that provides airspace surveillance
and control and directs air sovereignty activities for the Contiguous United States (CONUS).
CONR is the NORAD designation of the United States Air Force First Air Force/AFNORTH. Its headquarters is located at Tyndall Air Force Base,
Florida. The First Air Force (1 AF) became responsible for the USAF
air defense mission on 30 September 1990. AFNORTH is the United States
Air Force component of United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM).
1 AF/CONR-AFNORTH comprises Air National Guard
Fighter Wings assigned an air defense mission to 1 AF/CONR-AFNORTH on
federal orders, made up primarily of citizen Airmen. The primary weapons
systems are the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft.
It plans, conducts, controls, coordinates and ensures air
sovereignty and provides for the unilateral defense of the United
States. It is organized with a combined First Air Force command post at
Tyndall Air Force Base and two Sector Operations Control Centers (SOCC)
at Rome, New York for the US East ROCC (Eastern Air Defense Sector) and McChord Field, Washington for the US West ROCC (Western Air Defense Sector) manned by active duty personnel to maintain continuous surveillance of CONUS airspace.
In its role as the CONUS NORAD Region, 1 AF/CONR-AFNORTH also performs counter-drug surveillance operations.
United States outside of NORAD: Hawaii, Guam, and the Pacific region
The United States Pacific Command (PACOM) would make the determination that an inbound missile is a threat to the United States in the Pacific Region. Hawaii is the only state in the United States with a pre-programmed Wireless Emergency Alert
that can be sent quickly to wireless devices if a ballistic missile is
heading toward Hawaii. If the missile is fired from North Korea, the
missile would take approximately 20 minutes to reach Hawaii. PACOM would
take less than 5 minutes to make a determination that the missile could
strike Hawaii and would then notify the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA). HI-EMA would issue the Civil Defense Warning (CDW) that an inbound missile could strike Hawaii and that people should Shelter-in-Place: Get Inside, Stay Inside, and Stay Tuned. People in Hawaii would have 12 to 15 minutes before impact. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
is not required to be notified for approval to cancel an alert. Signal
carriers allow people to block alerts from state and law enforcement
agencies, but not those issued by the President. FEMA can send alerts to
targeted audiences but has not implemented this as of January 2018.
Other states can take as long as 30 minutes to create, enter and
distribute a missile alert. The nationwide system for Wireless Emergency Alerts to mobile devices was tested for the first time on 3 October 2018.
History
The North American Air Defense Command was recommended by the Joint Canadian–U.S. Military Group in late 1956, approved by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in February 1957, and announced on 1 August 1957. NORAD's command headquarters was established on 12 September 1957 at Ent Air Force Base's 1954 blockhouse.
In 1958, Canada and the United States agreed that the NORAD commander
would always be a United States officer, with a Canadian vice commander,
and Canada "agreed the command's primary purpose would be…early warning
and defense for SAC's retaliatory forces." In late 1958, Canada and the United States started the Continental Air Defense Integration North (CADIN) for the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment air defense network.
The initial CADIN cost-sharing agreement between the two countries was
signed off on 5 January 1959. Two December 1958 plans submitted by NORAD
had "average yearly expenditure of around five and one half billions",
including "cost of the accelerated Nike Zeus program" and three Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) sites.
The 25-ton North blast door in the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker
is the main entrance to another blast door (background) beyond which
the side tunnel branches into access tunnels to the main chambers.
Canada's NORAD bunker at CFB North Bay with a SAGE AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central computer was constructed from 1959 to 1963, and each of the USAF's eight smaller AN/FSQ-8 Combat Control Central
systems provided NORAD with data and could command the entire United
States air defense. The RCAF's 1950 "ground observer system, the Long Range Air Raid Warning System", was discontinued and on 31 January 1959, the United States Ground Observer 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" The Secretary of Defense assigned on 7 October 1960, "operational command of all space surveillance to Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) and operational control to North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)".
The JCS placed the Ent Air Force Base 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 nuclear bunker excavation, 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.
NORAD command center operations moved from Ent Air Force Base to
the 1963 partially underground "Combined Operations Center" for Aerospace Defense Command and NORAD at the Chidlaw Building. President John F. Kennedy visited "NORAD headquarters" after the 5 June 1963 United States Air Force Academy graduation and on 30 October 1964, "NORAD began manning" the Combat Operations Center in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. By 1965, about 250,000 United States and Canadian personnel were involved in the operation of NORAD. On 1 January 1966, Air Force Systems Command turned the COC over to NORAD The NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex was accepted on 8 February 1966.
1968 reorganization
United States Department of Defense realignments for the NORAD command organization began by 15 November 1968 (e.g., Army Air Defense Command (ARADCOM)) and by 1972, there were eight NORAD "regional areas ... for all air defense", and the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex Improvements Program (427M System) became operational in 1979.
False alarms
On
at least three occasions, NORAD systems failed, such as on 9 November
1979, 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. On 3 June 1980, and again on 6 June 1980, a computer communications device failure caused warning messages to sporadically flash in U.S. Air Force command posts around the world that a nuclear attack was taking place. During these incidents, Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) properly had their planes (loaded with nuclear bombs) in the air; Strategic Air Command (SAC) did not and received criticism, because they did not follow procedure, even though the SAC command knew these were almost certainly false alarms, as did PACAF.
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 simply did not match the
erroneous data received from NORAD.
1980 reorganization
The North Warning System as envisioned by Canada and the US in 1987.
NORAD/USNORTHCOM Alternate Command Center prior to the Cheyenne Mountain Realignment.
Following the 1979 Joint US-Canada Air Defense Study, the command structure for aerospace defense was changed, e.g., "SAC assumed control of ballistic missile warning and space surveillance facilities" on 1 December 1979 from ADCOM. The Aerospace Defense Command major command ended 31 March 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. By 1982, a NORAD Off-site Test Facility was located at Peterson AFB. The DEW Line was to be replaced with the North Warning System (NWS); the Over-the-Horizon Backscatter (OTH-B) radar was to be deployed; more advanced fighters were deployed, and E-3 Sentry 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.
NORAD was renamed North American Aerospace Defense Command in March 1981.
Post–Cold War
In
1989 NORAD operations expanded to cover counter-drug operations, for
example, tracking of small aircraft entering and operating within the
United States and Canada.
DEW line sites were replaced between 1986 and 1995 by the North Warning
System. The Cheyenne Mountain site was also upgraded, but none of the
proposed OTH-B radars are currently in operation.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the NORAD Air Warning Center's mission "expanded to include the interior airspace of North America."
The Cheyenne Mountain Realignment was announced on 28 July 2006, to consolidate NORAD's day-to-day operations at Peterson Air Force Base with Cheyenne Mountain in "warm standby" staffed with support personnel.
In popular culture
1955 Sears ad with the misprinted telephone number that led to the NORAD Tracks Santa Program. NORAD Tracks Santa follows Santa Claus' Christmas Eve journey around the world.[39][40]
Movies and television
The NORAD command center located under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado is a setting of the 1983 film WarGames and the television series Jeremiah and Stargate SG-1. In the 1996 science fiction film Independence Day, NORAD was destroyed by the alien invaders.
NORAD Tracks Santa
As a publicity move on 24 December 1955, NORAD's predecessor, the
Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), informed the press that CONAD
was tracking Santa Claus's sleigh, adding that "CONAD, Army, Navy and Marine
Air Forces will continue to track and guard Santa and his sleigh on his
trip to and from the U.S. against possible attack from those who do not
believe in Christmas", and a Christmas Eve tradition was born, known as the "NORAD Tracks Santa" program. Every year on Christmas Eve, "NORAD Tracks Santa" purports to track Santa Claus as he leaves the North Pole and delivers presents to children around the world. Today, NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible.
