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by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
PROJECT DIANA INSPIRES FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
On 10 January 1946, the U.S. Signal Corps at the Evans Signal Laboratory in New Jersey became the first in history to reflect an electronic signal off the surface of the moon. Project DIANA, named for the Roman moon goddess, was the Army’s first foray into radar astronomy. Not only did it herald the age of space exploration, it had military implications for future communications, unmanned sensors and signals intelligence.
Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, had been the training base of the U.S. Signal Corps since 1917, though signals training would not be consolidated there until the beginning of World War II. The Signal Corps operated three field laboratories during World War II, focused on different areas of signals intelligence and technology development. Field Laboratory Number Three was originally located at Fort Hancock on the New Jersey mainland, where it served as the Radio Position Finding section. In 1942, the laboratory moved south to the Signal Corps Radar Laboratory at Belmar, which was built by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in 1914 and served as a U.S. naval base during World War I. The camp was renamed Evans Signal Laboratory in 1941, after Lt. Col. Paul W. Evans, a World War I Signal Corpsman who headed the 51st Signal Battalion at Fort Monmouth in the 1920s.
At the end of World War II, while many Army radar technicians and scientists remained at Fort Monmouth awaiting discharge from the Army, Lt. Col. John DeWitt began conducting a series of radar experiments at nearby Camp Evans. He and his small team of researchers used equipment supplied by Signal Corps Capt. Edwin H. Armstrong, the inventor of wideband frequency modulation (FM) radio in 1913. On the morning of 10 January 1946, at the northeast corner of the camp, DeWitt’s team raised the power on their modified SCR-271 bed-spring radar antenna and aimed the signal at the still visible moon. Several signals were returned and measured by the team at 2.5 second intervals, the time it takes light to travel to the moon and back.
Radio enthusiasts across the globe cheered the project’s success, seeing new potential for radiocommunications and radar technology. An April 1946 article in Radio News magazine highlighted the achievement of the scientists at Camp Evans and the implications for the future:
"Radar echoes from the moon! This is the [most] outstanding scientific achievement since the revelation of the atomic bomb. Radar, itself, was a miracle of science—bent to the defensive and offensive requirements of modern warfare: to detect and locate air and surface vessels. But this extension of the use of radar—to measure vast distance heretofore could only be computed in theory—becomes a singular and major step forward in the field of science."
The team made history as the first to reflect a signal back from outer space. The military implications included the possibility of guided missile systems and advanced radio intelligence capabilities. Project DIANA also proved radar technology worked beyond the ionosphere, a concept that kickstarted America’s space age. Over the next decade, the Army began developing satellites and eventually manned rockets. The creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was a product of the experimentation at Camp Evans, and Project DIANA began the tradition of naming space projects, missions, and vehicles after Roman and Greek mythology. The groundbreaking technology used by technicians in the fields of radiocommunications, unmanned systems, and signals intelligence today was made possible by the achievements of Colonel DeWitt’s team at Camp Evans.
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| Date Taken: | 01.05.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 01.05.2024 14:30 |
| Story ID: | 461381 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 195 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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