Terence James Elkins (8 March 1936 – 23 November 2023) was an Australian-born American physicist. In 1960, he participated in an expedition from Mawson Station which conducted the first geological surveys of the Napier Mountains in Enderby Land, East Antarctica. The highest of this group of mountains, Mount Elkins, was subsequently named after him. In 1979, he received the Harold Brown Award, the United States Air Force's highest honour for research and development, for research he conducted that contributed to the development of the AN/FPS-115, AN/FPS-117 and AN/FPS-118 over-the-horizon backscatter (OTH-B) air defence radar system. Designed to replace the ageing Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, these systems are among the most powerful early-warning radar systems ever developed.
Education Elkins earned his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Melbourne in 1957. He earned his master's degree in Physics and Astronomy from Boston University in 1967. He earned his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1970, publishing a thesis entitled Studies of Ionospheric Irregularity Using Radio Astronomical Techniques.
Mawson Station (1960–1961) After completion of his bachelor's degree, Elkins joined the ANARE team that wintered over at Mawson Station in Australian Antarctic Territory in 1960. The wintering party comprised 33 expeditioners including 12 members of the Antarctic Flight RAAF; the Officer-in-Charge was Hendrick Geysen. That year, Elkins was part of a 400 km sledging field party that travelled from Mawson Station to the Napier Mountains in Enderby Land. The men of this expedition, led by fellow Antarctic explorer Syd Kirkby, conducted the first geological surveys of that area of the continent. The highest of this small group of mountains, Mount Elkins, was subsequently named after Dr. Elkins. Other survey teams that year visited the Framnes Mountains, conducted geological and survey work in the Prince Charles Mountains, and visited the Emperor penguin colonies at Taylor Glacier and Fold Island. ANARE has since been renamed the Australian Antarctic Program, managed by the Australian Antarctic Division, itself a division of the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.
Emigration to the United States and early career
Elkins emigrated from his native Australia to the United States in 1963, at the height of the Space Race, after being recruited by the scientific research program of the United States Air Force. Beginning in the early 1960s, he conducted research focused mainly on the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, and improvements to ground, airborne, and space-based ISTAR systems, including over-the-horizon radar systems. In addition to his work at Hanscom Air Force Base, much of his early research was also conducted at Sagamore Hill Radio Observatory, a ground-based solar observatory located in Hamilton, Massachusetts. Sagamore Hill Solar Radio Observatory is a functional component of the Radio Solar Telescope Network (RSTN). In 1980, he developed and published an auroral echo-scattering model to predict the obscuration of targets when the radar transmission path is through the polar regions of Earth.
Development of the AN/FPS-118 air defence radar system Under the universal classification system for electronic radar and tracking systems, the letters “AN” (for Army-Navy) are placed ahead of a three-letter code. The first letter of the three-letter code denotes the type of platform hosting the electronic device, where A=Aircraft; F=Fixed (land-based); S=Ship-mounted; T=Ground transportable. The second letter indicates the type of device, where P=Radar (pulsed); Q=Sonar; R=Radio. The third letter indicates the function of the radar system device, where G=Fire control; R=Receiving; S=Search; T=Transmitting. Thus, the AN/FPS-115 represents the 115th design of an Army-Navy “Fixed, Radar, Search” electronic device. Elkins was part of a team of Rome Air Development Center (RADC) engineers that developed and constructed components for frequency modulation/continuous wave (FM/CW) radars capable of detecting and tracking objects at over-the-horizon ranges. A prototype radar was installed and evaluated on 15 September 1970. The system incorporated a Beverage array receiving antenna located at Columbia Falls Air Force Station, a high-power transmitter array located at Moscow Air Force Station, and an operations center located at Bangor International Airport. This prototype became operational on 30 October of that year. Experimental transmissions from the Maine site covered a 60° sector from 16.5° to 76.5° azimuth and from 900 to 3,300 km in range from the radar. Based on the success of these early experiments, the United States Department of Defense proposed to deploy a fully operational radar system. This radar system, covering 180° in azimuth, was built at the same locations in Maine. Initial testing was conducted from June 1980 to June 1981. GE Aerospace (now Lockheed Martin Ocean, Radar and Sensor Systems) received a contract in mid-1982 for full-scale development of the AN/FPS-118 program. The operational system consisted of multiple OTH-B radars functioning as an early warning system to detect incoming enemy bombers, ICBMs, and cruise missiles. The system, as initially envisioned, was to consist of four sectors:
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