Pirinçlik Air Base

Pirinçlik Air Base (Turkish: Pirinçlik Hava Üssü), also known as Pirinçlik Air Station, formerly Diyarbakır Air Station, was a 41-year-old American-Turkish military base near Diyarbakir, Turkey. Notable base commanders include Col. Dale Lee Norman. It was known as NATO's frontier post for monitoring the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, completely closed on 30 September 1997.

This return was the result of the general drawdown of US bases in Europe and improvement in space surveillance technology. The base near the southeastern city of Diyarbakir housed sensitive electronic intelligence-gathering systems for listening on the Middle East, Caucasus and Russia.

The Pirinçlik sensor system consisted of two radio frequency (RF) mechanical radar systems providing radar intelligence, space surveillance, and missile warning data to multiple users. Observations from Diyarbakır were normally the first radar reports of new Russian satellite launches from Kapustin Yar in the early days of satellite tracking; see Project Space Track. The site operated both a detection radar (AN/FPS-17) and a mechanical tracking radar (AN/FPS-79). Although limited by their mechanical technology, Pirinçlik's two radars gave the advantage of tracking two objects simultaneously in real time. Its location close to the southern Soviet Union made it the only ground sensor capable of tracking actual deorbits of Soviet space hardware. In addition, the Pirinçlik radar was the only 24-hour-per-day eastern hemisphere deep-space sensor.