World's Premiere Facility For Ionosperic Research Completed

BAE Systems has completed work on the world’s largest and most capable ionospheric research facility. The facility will be used to study interactions between high-power radio signals and the earth's ionosphere.

As the prime contractor for the U.S. Defense Department’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) research station, BAE Systems designed and built the facility, operating software, and controls under a series of
contracts valued at more than $250 million from the Office of Naval Research.

The research station was dedicated on June 27 in a ceremony held at the Gakona site. Construction of the station was jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

It includes 360 radio transmitters with a combined power of 3.6 megawatts; 180, 68-foot-tall antennas covering an area of 40 acres; and five large generators providing more than 16 megawatts of power.

“HAARP is a scientific project to study the properties and behavior of the ionosphere, with emphasis on using the ionosphere to improve communications and surveillance systems for civilian and defense purposes,” said Rob Jacobsen, HAARP program director for BAE Systems in Washington, D.C.

The ionosphere is the part of the atmosphere between space and the earth in which electrically charged atoms, or ions, reflect radio waves, making long-distance radio communication possible.

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