Buckley Air Force Base Played Key Role Warning U.S. Troops In Iraq About Incoming Missiles
BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (CBS4) - Nearly 14 months ago, the world held its collective breath as the United States and Iran traded fire in what could easily have sparked a major new conflict in the Middle East. The early warning system housed at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora played a crucial role in saving American lives and warning the Ayn Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq about incoming rockets from Iran.
It was the night of Jan. 7, 2020 when the first reports of Iranian ballistic missiles headed for an Iraqi airbase home to 2,000 U.S. troops flooded the airwaves. The attack was in response to a drone strike order by then-President Donald Trump which resulted in the death of Iran's top military general, Qassem Soleimani. Facilities around the base were destroyed. Buildings were reduced to rubble, runways were shredded, equipment and vehicles were destroyed. Later, the Pentagon would say that 110 people had to be treated for traumatic brain injuries. Miraculously, no one died.
Buckley Air Force Base played a key role in getting those troops notice of the incoming attack.
A collective 12,000 pounds of rocket-mounted warheads rained down on U.S. troops that night, the largest ballistic missile attack on Americans ever. The bunker that troops sought shelter in was designed to withstand only a 60-pound onslaught.
The 2nd Space Warning Squadron, which operates the Space Based Infrared System, or SBIRS, satellites in the iconic "golf balls" on the plains near E-470, is tasked with monitoring any ballistic missile launch anywhere in the world. High-level technology inside those radomes talk to satellites orbiting the earth, and sound the alarm when rockets leave the ground anywhere on Earth. That night, those working the 2SWS operations center were the first to know the U.S. base in Iraq was under attack.
Lieutenant Colonel Brandon Davenport, who serves as Squadron Commander, told DefenseNews that this is what his team trains for every single day.
"This is what they're trained to do day in and day out," Lt. Col. Davenport told the outlet. "That part felt very normal. That's why it felt surreal, because it felt like any other day other than the fact that we all knew there were Americans and allies on the other end of that missile."
SBIRS was manufactured by Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, California, but Lockheed Martin's military space operations are headquartered at their Littleton campus. The first SBIRS Geosynchronous satellite launched in 2011 on the back of a rocket manufactured by ULA, headquartered in Centennial.
SBIRS uses highly-advanced infrared technology and a network of satellites in orbit and on the ground, like those inside the radomes at Buckley Air Force Base, to provide early missile warning around the globe for the U.S. military. Details are highly classified, but Lockheed Martin says SBIRS missions are considered among the highest of priorities for the United States. The Government Accountability Office tagged the SBIRS cost at nearly $20 billion.
The 2nd Space Warning System took over as the United States' chief missile defense monitoring group in October 2019 and immediately started monitoring Iran for missile activities. The Jan. 3, 2020 drone strike that killed Soleimani only served to raise the already tense situation. On the night of Jan. 7, 2020, SBIRS recorded a brief infrared signal in Iran and the team on duty immediately sprung into action.
It's not known how quickly those on shift that night at Buckley Air Force Base alerted the troops in Iraq that missiles were in the air. It wasn't long, though. Lieutenant General David Thompson, Vice Commander of the United States Space Force, told the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium in February 2020 that the missiles headed for Al-Asad Airbase were in the air for just six minutes.
"If those Airmen on crew that night, specifically the warning officer at the warning station, if she had not done her job better than her training, if she had not detected that launch, determined where it was, where it was going, who was under threat, and released warning messages that got to the 300+ Americans at Al-Asad Airbase, today we would be talking about dead Americans," General Thompson told the symposium.
In an official Air Force report on the attack, airmen involved in the attack recalled that night and how important the early warning crew at Buckley Air Force Base was to their survival.
"Around 1 a.m., we heard 'Seek Shelter, Seek Shelter, Seek Shelter' over the loud speakers, then we immediately felt and heard the impact," Master Sergeant Janet Liliu recalls. "I wasn't ready to die, but I tried to prepare myself with every announcement of an incoming missile. I had to. We all had to."