20th Space Control Squadron

20th Space Control Squadron
20th Space Control Squadron emblem
Active	1966-Present
Branch	United States Air Force
Type	Space Control
Role	Active Space Surveillance
Part of	21st Space Wing
Garrison/HQ	Eglin AFB, Florida
Motto(s)	DETECT - TRACK - IDENTIFY
Decorations	AFOUA
Website	Eglin AFB fact sheet

The 20th Space Control Squadron (20SPCS) is a 21st Space Wing unit with the mission to execute multiplatform, tactical space warfighting domain characterization, recognition, and responsiveness to achieve 21st Space Wing and United States Strategic Command intent.

Eglin Site C-6's squadron of the 9th Aerospace Defense Division activated in September 1968. and was turned over to Air Force Systems Command on 20 September 1968, and became operational in December 1968.

Eglin Site C-6 was assigned to Aerospace Defense Command on 20 December 1968. In 1972 20% of the site's "surveillance capability…became dedicated to search for SLBMs" and was subsequently renamed the 20th Missile Warning Squadron (the USAF SLBM Phased Array Radar System was initiated In November 1972 by the JCS while the Army's MSR and PAR phased arrays for missile defense were under construction.) The FPS-85 was expanded^[specify] in 1974, and "a scanning program to detect" SLBM warheads was installed in 1975. Alaska's AN/FPS-108 Cobra Dane phased array site was completed in 1976 and from 1979 until 1983, Site C-6 was assigned to Strategic Air Command's Directorate of Space and Missile Warning Systems (SAC/SX)--as were the new PAVE PAWS phased array sites operational in 1980.

In 1983 Eglin Site C-6 transferred to Space Command (later renamed Air Force Space Command), and the "FPS-85 assumed a deep space role in November 1988 after receiving a range-extension upgrade enabling integration of many pulses." With the addition of additional missile warning sites becoming active, the squadron eliminated its missile warning mission, and the surveillance squadron name was restored in 1987. The unit was renamed the 20th Space surveillance squadron when a "new radar control computer" was installed at the site in 1994. By 1998, the site was providing space surveillance on "38 percent of the near-earth catalogue" of space objects (ESC's "SND C2 SPO was the System Program Office.) "A complete modernization…of the 1960s signal-processing system was being studied in 1999", and in 2002 Site C-6 was tracking "over 95 percent of all earth satellites daily." The squadron was renamed the 20th Space Control Squadron in February 2003. By 2011 the site's "16 million observations of satellites per year" (rate of 30.4/minute) was "30 percent of the space surveillance network's total workload".