Shut-Down of Fence System Could Impair Tracking of Debris

By JEREMY SINGER
Space News Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department’s ability to detect and track potentially threatening orbital debris could be compromised if a ground-based network of radars operated by the U.S. Navy is shut down as proposed, according to Navy officials.

In a recent exercise in which the U.S. Air Force was denied regular information updates from the Navy system, dubbed the Fence, several potentially threatening orbital events, including the break-up of a spent rocket stage, went undetected, according to Jim Rose, head of orbital analysis operations at Naval Network and Space Operations Command in Dahlgren, Va.

The Fence consists of nine radar sites located along a rough line that runs across the southern part of the U.S. mainland.