- History ›
- MIT Radiation Laboratory ›
- SAGE ›
- MIT Lincoln Laboratory's
History Book ›
- Lincoln Laboratory Logo ›
- Organization ›
- Facilities ›
- Field Sites ›
- Lincoln Laboratory / MIT Interactions ›
- Technology Transfer ›
- Small Business ›
- Visitor Information / Directions ›
- Laboratory Status ›
The SAGE Air Defense System
The scope of the SAGE Air Defense System, as it evolved from its inception in 1951 to its full deployment in 1963, was enormous. The cost of the project, both in funding and the number of military, civilian, and contractor personnel involved, exceeded that of the Manhattan Project. The project name evolved over time from Project Lincoln, its original 1951 designator, to the Lincoln Transition System, and finally settled out as the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, or SAGE. The basic SAGE architecture was cleanly summarized in the preface to a seminal 1953 technical memo written by George Valley and Jay Forrester: Lincoln Laboratory Technical Memorandum No. 20, "A Proposal for Air Defense System Evolution: The Transition Phase."
Briefly, the… system will consist of: (1) a net of radars and other data sources and (2) digital computers that (a) receive the radar and other information to detect and tract aircraft, (b) process the track data to form a complete air situation, and (c) guide weapons to destroy enemy aircraft.
The top-level architecture for the system, as outlined in the memo, is shown below. The graphic is used with the permission of The MITRE Corporation (copyright © The MITRE Corporation; all rights reserved).
The concept of operations for SAGE was fairly simple and was similar to that of modern automated air defense systems. However, it was pioneering at the time. A large network of radars would automatically detect a hostile bomber formation as it approached the U.S. mainland from any direction. The radar detections would be transmitted over telephone lines to the nearest SAGE direction center, where they would be processed by an AN/FSQ-7 computer. The direction center would then send out notification and continuous targeting information to the air bases best situated to carry out interception of the approaching bombers, as well as to a set of surface-to-air missile batteries. The direction center would also send data to and receive data from adjoining centers, and send situational awareness information to the command centers. As the fighters from the air bases scrambled and became airborne, the direction center would continue to process track data from multiple radars and would transmit updated target positions in order to vector the intercepting aircraft to their targets. After the fighter aircraft intercepted the approaching bombers, they would send raid assessment information back to the direction center to determine whether additional aircraft or missile intercepts were necessary.
- Early warning radar detects approaching aircraft
- Radar reports automatically transmitted to direction center (DC) via phone lines
- DC processes data
- Air bases, HQs, and missile batteries notified
- Data relayed between DC and adjoining centers
- DC assigns interceptor aircraft and vectors interceptors to targets
- Interceptors rendezvous with and intercept targets
- DC informs HQ of results; missile batteries provide second line of defense if needed
The SAGE system, by the time of its full deployment, consisted of 100s of radars, 24 direction centers, and 3 combat centers spread throughout the U.S. The direction centers were connected to 100s of airfields and surface-to-air missile sites, providing a multilayered engagement capability. Each direction center housed a dual-redundant AN/FSQ-7 computer, evolved from MIT's experimental Whirlwind computer of the 1950s. These computers hosted programs that consisted of over 500,000 lines of code and executed over 25,000 instructions—by far the largest computer programs ever written at that time. The direction centers automatically processed data from multiple remote radars, provided control information to intercepting aircraft and surface-to-air missile sites, and provided command and control and situational awareness displays to over 100 operator stations at each center. It was far and away the most grandiose systems engineering effort—and the largest electronic system-of-systems "ever contemplated."
Although the basic concept for SAGE was simple, the technological challenges were immense. One of the greatest immediate challenges was the need to develop a digital computer that could receive vast quantities of data from multiple radars and perform the real-time processing to produce targeting information for intercepting aircraft and missiles. Fortunately, and serendipitously, the initial concept development for such a computer was taking place on the MIT campus in the Servomechanisms Laboratory, under the direction of Jay Forrester. This effort, with its maturation under SAGE, laid the foundation for a revolution in digital computing, which subsequently had a profound impact on the modern world.
top of page