AN/MSQ-1


The AN/MSQ-1 Close Support Control Set, produced by Reeves Instrument Corporation, was a trailer-mounted combination radar/computer/communication system for command guidance of manned aircraft. It was developed under a Rome Air Development Center program office. The system directed aircraft equipped with AN/APS-11A or AN/APW-11 avionics and was used during the Korean War for ground-directed bombing. The MSQ-1 was subsequently used for nuclear testing during Operation Teapot, and for aircraft tests such as controlled pinpoint photography using the RB-57A Canberra in 1954.
In accordance with the Joint Electronics Type Designation System, the "AN/MSQ-1" designation represents the first design of an Army-Navy electronic device for ground mobile special combination equipment. The JETDS system also now is used to name all Department of Defense electronic systems.
The set originally had a Reeves Instrument Corporation direct current analog computer. It was later modified to use an alternating current computer for the Matador Automatic Radar Control to guide MGM-1 Matadors and other unmanned aerial vehicles. The MSQ-1 was considered for guidance of the XQ-5 target drone in 1957.
US Air Force MSQ-1A units were carried aboard the and the to track Lockheed X-17s launched during the Operation Argus nuclear tests.

Radar stations

In addition to the Tadpole radar stations of the Korean War, a downrange AN/MSQ-1 for the Atlantic Missile Range had been at Florida's Jupiter Missile Guidance Annex in 1952, and an MSQ-1 radar station on the United States Gulf Coast for the RB-57A tests.