20th Space Control Squadron wins first General Lance W. Lord Award

  • Published
  • By Capt. Guy Epps
  • 20th Space Control Squadron
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  During an awards banquet at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., Sept. 10, the 20th Space Control Squadron here and 20th SPCS Det. 1, Naval Support Activity Dahlgren, Va., took home the first-ever General Lance W. Lord Award.

The Lord Award is named in honor of a career space and missile officer and pioneer who served 37 years on active duty, culminating as the commander of Air Force Space Command. The award is to be presented annually to the unit making the greatest impact on mission accomplishment, improvements and innovations, and new initiatives.

In addition to the unit award, Mr. Scott Leonard, an orbital analyst at Det. 1, took home the General Lord Award in the civilian category. The winners in the officer and enlisted categories were Capt. Gregory Lawrence, 76th Space Control Squadron and Master Sgt. Scott McKenzie, 21st Operations Support Squadron.

In a speech before more than 150 people, Col. Chris D. Crawford, 21st Operations Group commander, praised all the award winners for a job well done and taking the first step in making the Lord Trophy the premier operations group award in Air Force Space Command. General Lord also addressed the gathering, emphasizing the wings dedication to "flawless" operations and praising the dedication and devotion to excellence of the entire 21st Space Wing team.

The men and women of the 20th SPCS were singled out for taking two 40- year-old weapon systems and transforming them to meet 21st Century space threats. One key initiative was the implementation of 3-D modeling software.

"This tool enables the unit to transform a satellite's orbital flight path as it relates to the radar's field of view into a 3-D image," said Lt. Michael Wilson, operations flight commander and tactics officer. "This gives crew members the ability to predict when an object is entering the radar's view, and for how long, so they can employ the best tactics and techniques for that particular mission."

In the past year alone, 20th SPCS crews developed multiple special reconnaissance fences to track several new foreign satellites.

"The improved quality of intelligence gathered allowed the Joint Functional Component Command-Space to give American and allied forces a better understanding of enemy capabilities in space," said Lt. Col. Steven Buzon, Det. 1 commander.

The winning squadron, located at Site C-6 on Eglin, is a geographically separated unit of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson. Its mission is to detect, track, identify, and report near earth and deep space objects in earth's orbit, and provide space object identification data in support of U.S. Strategic Command's space control mission. The men and women of the 20th SPCS employ and maintain the AN/FPS-85 radar, which is the Air Force's only phased-array radar dedicated to tracking earth-orbiting objects. The radar can track approximately 90- percent of all manmade earth-orbiting objects. The squadron is able to track objects the size of a softball orbiting at an altitude of 300 nautical miles and basketball sized objects orbiting at 22,300 nautical miles above the earth.

20th SPCS, Det. 1, operates the AN/FPS-133 surveillance fence radar, a network of three transmitters and six receivers located from coast to coast along the southern United States. The detachment also operates as the Alternate Space Control Center for U.S. Strategic Command. The ASCC provides accurate positional data on all manmade, earth-orbiting space objects, in-depth orbital analysis on these space objects, and efficiently disseminates orbital positional data to customers worldwide.

"An award like this is only possible with the dedicated hard work of each and every member of our family," said Lt. Col. Thomas Falzarano, 20th SPCS commander. "At this very moment Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are in harm's way in every corner of the globe, and every squadron in the Air Force, including the 20th Space Control Squadron, is critical to that fight."