According to the Harwich Oracle, Air Force Space Command maintains that the turbines of a proposed wind farm on Nantucket Sound would not affect its PAVE PAWS phased-array warning radar station in Sagamore. The command issued a decision in 2004 stating that the 130 wind turbines would not affect the PAVE PAWS, operated by the 6th Space Warning Squadron at Cape Cod AFS, Mass. Last year, however, Congress asked AFSPC to go over its findings again. Lt. Col. Christopher Gentry, 6th SWS commander, said Space Command officials “stand by their original position.”
As commercial companies, universities, and research agencies develop new approaches to operating satellites at lower and lower altitudes, the Space Force is taking notice and considering how it might leverage those advances in both the near and long term.