Joint Surveillance System

The Joint Surveillance System (JSS) s a joint United States Air Force/Federal Aviation Agency radar use program.

The USAF Air Combat Command portion of the JSS is composed of four CONUS SOCCs equipped with FYQ-93 computers, and forty-seven ground-based AN/FPS-93 Search Radars. FAA equipment is a mixture of Air Route Surveillance Radar (ARSR) 1, 2, and 3 systems. Collocated with the majority of radar sites are UHF ground-air-ground (G/A/G) transmitter/receiver (GATR) facilities. Fourteen sites have VHF radios as well. The GATR facility provides radio access to fighters and AWACS aircraft from the SOCCs.

JSS Region Operations Control Centres (ROCCs) are located at Griffiss, March, McChord and Tyndall AFBs, and they receive data from 46 radar sites. Some 14 more sites feed data to another ROCC in Alaska at Elmendorf AFB and two radar sites supply data for another ROCC in Hawaii. A total of 24 air surveillance radar networks in Canada feed data to two ROCCs located at North Bay, Ontario.

The function of the ROCCs is to accept data from multiple sensors, automatically process this data and display data for detection, tracking and identification of air targets, and the assignment and direction of interceptor aircraft to ensure peacetime air sovereignty. In time of war or emergency, JSS ROCCs serve as the means of transferring the command and control functions to E-3A AWACS aircraft and would continue as a back-up to AWACS.

In peacetime, six of these aircraft are assigned to co-operate with the JSS.ROCC information is also passed to the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) Combat Operations Centre (COC).The JSS has been enhanced under the FAA/Air Force Radar Replacement Program with 44 ARSR-4/FPS-130 radars to replace some of the many previous long-range radars. This provides common, high-performance, unattended radars. The ARSR-4/FPS-130 is a 3-D long range radar with an effective detection range of some 250 miles and has been fully integrated with JSS at all joint use sites.

The first region of the JSS to enter operation under the USAF Tactical Air Command was in March/April 1983 and the remaining regions became operational at intervals of a few months until, by March 1984, all seven continental US ROCCs were operational with Hawaii, the eighth, following later that year.An additional JSS site, similar in size to the facility in Hawaii, was completed in 1988 to provide interim air defence capabilities for Iceland.

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency

• Joint Surveillance System @ radomes.org