The Pentagon is considering placing some of the radar installations it uses to monitor objects in space outside of the country’s borders for the first time, according to an industry official involved with the work. However, before that happens the U.S. Air Force will have to decide how much it wants to spend and exactly what it wants to do with the space surveillance program, which it recently inherited from the U.S. Navy.

Placing these radar stations, which are known as the Fence, in different countries would give the Air Force more opportunities to view an object orbiting around the Earth than it has today, said Tom Crocker, program manager for S-band sensor systems at Raytheon. Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, Tewksbury, Mass., currently has a contract with the Pentagon to upgrade the Defense Department’s space surveillance radar systems.

There are, however, other options under consideration, including delaying the deployment of the upgraded Fence stations or canceling the upgrades altogether and waiting for the completion of the technology development for new space surveillance systems now in the early stages of development.

The Pentagon transferred responsibility for the Fence system from the Navy to the Air Force in late 2002. The Navy had awarded Raytheon a contract in October that could be worth up to $396 million. However, when the work was shifted to the Air Force, the Pentagon shifted only the money that was contained in U.S. President George W. Bush’s 2004 budget request. Additional funding for Fence beyond 2004 will have to be requested by the Air Force, according to Pentagon officials. The first of the three new Fence radar stations that had been planned by the Navy was to be ready in 2008, with two others to follow by 2012.

Since the transfer of the program to the Air Force, however, work has been on hold while the Air Force has examined its options, Crocker said. To make more money available to keep the effort alive in the near term, the Air Force could restart the effort  in 2005, Crocker said. That would delay the availability of the new Fence stations for two years, he said.

Air Force Space Command recently sent its recommendations on how the Air Force should proceed with the Fence to senior service leadership at the Pentagon, said Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the command. The decision on the future of the Fence will ultimately be made “in the next few months” by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he said. Kucharek declined to comment further while the deliberations are ongoing.

The Pentagon maintains nine Fence stations throughout the southern United States. Raytheon is under contract to build three upgraded Fence stations, while the other six will likely close. The Air Force could use one Fence station domestically, and place other stations at U.S. government facilities in the Southern Hemisphere, where they would be operated by U.S. officials already working at those locations, Crocker said. The only added expense to building Fence stations outside of the United States would be increased travel costs for the contractors working on the project, he said.

Watching space objects from several different positions on Earth could help the Air Force determine an object’s path much faster, giving the service more time to move a spacecraft if necessary to avoid a collision, Crocker said. This capability is important whether the Air Force is watching space debris, or a satellite controlled by an enemy to threaten U.S. assets, he said.

Improvements to the Fence could also help NASA’s manned spacecraft avoid collision with other objects while in flight, Crocker said. Raytheon officials have discussed the matter with NASA informally, he said.

NASA officials said they presently use information from the Fence in monitoring its space missions, and look forward to the planned improvements to the system, according to a written statement provided by Sonja Alexander, a NASA spokeswoman. The officials declined to comment on whether NASA usage of data from the Fence may increase in the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy.

The additional capabilities for the upgraded Fence system sound attractive, but may be wishful thinking at this point, congressional aides said. The Air Force already has several space programs, including new communications and reconnaissance constellations under development that are due for major funding increases, and adding a new modernization effort to its portfolio may not be feasible, the aides said.

The Air Force would likely need an increase to its overall budget for 2005 and beyond to maintain the Fence, which is never easy to find, the congressional aides said. Members of Congress may be willing to go to bat for the Fence if the Air Force chooses to cancel the system, but they are not likely to take action if the service chooses to maintain the Fence without modernizing the system, the aides said.