Eglin AFB Site C-6, transmitter/receiver building in Walton County, United States
Eglin AFB Site C-6 is a military facility in northern Florida that operates a radar system used for space surveillance. The site consists of concrete and steel structures with electronically steered antennas pointed southward to detect satellites, debris, and other objects in orbit.
The facility was built in the early 1960s when Cold War tensions created the need to monitor missiles and satellites approaching from the south. After a fire damaged it during that same decade, it was rebuilt and became fully operational in 1969, gradually shifting its focus toward submarine-launched missiles and space debris.
The site is known mainly among specialists who work with space surveillance and has little visible presence in the daily life of the surrounding region. Visitors passing through the area see dense forests and open fields, with the structures set back and largely out of sight.
The site sits on elevated terrain surrounded by forests and open fields in northern Florida, but it is an active military facility and is not open to the public. Since no public access is permitted, visitors interested in the area can explore the parts of the wider Eglin Air Force Base that are open to the general public.
The AN/FPS-85 radar at this site can track objects no bigger than a basketball at distances that would be out of reach for any civilian system. Despite this capability, it operates almost entirely out of public view and remains largely unknown outside a small circle of space surveillance specialists.
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