The AN/FPQ-16 PARCS is a solid state phased array radar system housed "on a plain just east of the Pembina Escarpment"[2] in a 37 m (121 ft)[1] with a single-faced phased array radar pointed northward over Hudson Bay.[3] In normal operation PARCS can spot an object the size of a basketball (24 cm) at 3000 km (2000 miles). Tests during the 1970s and 1980s showed that with proposed software updates (not carried out) it could spot objects less than 9 cm in size.[4] It analyzes more than 20,000 tracks per day, from giant satellites to space debris.[3]
The PARCS building includes an underground power plant with five, 16 cylinder dual-fuel (diesel/natural gas) engines manufactured by Cooper Bessemer driving 5 General Electric generators for a total output of 14 megawatts.[5]
History
The facility was built as one site of the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex for the Safeguard Program's anti-ballistic missile defense, with the PAR providing detection data for computing preliminary trajectories to be provided to the Missile Site Radar[6] (the complex was deactivated in 1976). In 1977, the USAF acquired the site and expanded it into the Concrete Missile Early Warning System (CMEWS) named for the nearby Concrete ND community.[7]
The military installation was named for Cavalier ND in 1983 when Concrete's post office closed.
BAE Systems maintained the PARCS site from 2003 - 2017.[8]
The 10th SWS is a Geographically Separate Unit, which although based at Cavalier, is subordinate to Space Delta 4 based at Buckley Space Force Base in Colorado.[12]
Chapter 8: Perimeter Acquisition Radar, ABM Research and Development at Bell Laboratories: Project History at the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex History Page.*