USAF puts data center at Millington naval base
A U.S. Air Force unit that monitors nuclear detonations worldwide has put its backup data center in the naval installation near Memphis.
The Air Force Tactical Operations Center moved the alternate office and data center into the Naval Support Activity Mid-South facility in Millington.
The Tactical Operations Center monitors nuclear detonations and earthquakes worldwide for the U.S. Defense Department.
Personnel from the center’s primary office in Florida would relocate to Millington each time events such as hurricanes threaten Florida operations, said Susan A. Romano, the unit’s chief of public affairs.
Crews who evacuate the Florida office generally would come to Millington without family members and return to Florida once the threat subsides, Romano said.
Set up in 1947 to monitor nuclear weapons treaties, the Air Force unit operates around the clock to provide information for national policy planners. The unit controls the Air Force’s largest sensor network dedicated to detecting disturbances underground, under the sea, in the air and in space and determining “if the event is nuclear in nature,” an Air Force official said.
The Air Force spent $3.9 million installing the backup data center in 31,000 square feet of office space on the Millington base. Its seismic data is available for use by civilians such as university earthquake researchers, Romano said.
The Millington center, called AFTAC Mid-South by the Air Force, is near the former Navy runways. Mark Smith, a site relocation manager for AFTAC MidSouth, said the unit is considering ways its pilots might use the airport.
The tactical unit, based at Patrick Air Force Base near Cocoa Beach, Florida, was known as the Air Force’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance agency until a 2015 reorganization placed it within the U.S. 25th Air Force.
The backup data center was located in Texas at the 25th’s headquarters at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. The 25th’s expansion set off a national site selection search for the backup center that led to the Memphis area. The functions moved to Millington are named the Contingency of Operations and the Alternate U.S. National Data Center, Romano said.
Naval Support Activity Mid-South, formerly a military flight school and training base named Naval Air Station Memphis, is now the U.S. Navy’s primary human resources center. NSA Mid-South accounts for more than a third of the 18,000 federal government employees in Greater Memphis.
On the base, about 6,500 military personnel and civilian employees work in the Navy Personnel Command, Navy Recruiting Command, Navy Manpower Analysis Center, Navy Human Resources Center of Excellence, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Finance and Logistics national centers and the Joint Reserve Intelligence Center-Memphis.
The naval station’s 8,000-foot runway, considered one of Tennessee’s longest, has been shifted to civilian use and is part of the Millington-Memphis Airport.
Military operations date to a U.S. Army flight school opened in 1917. The U.S. Navy installed an aviation school in 1942. After World War II, the naval station served as a training center for Navy technicians for half a century.
Following the military drawdown at the end of the Cold War, the naval station was recast as Naval Support Activity Mid-South and a large portion of the U.S. Bureau of Naval Personnel was moved to Millington from Virginia.