The U.S. Air Force Space Command said it has checked and rechecked and still believes a proposed wind farm on Nantucket Sound would not affect its PAVE PAWS radar station in Sagamore.

“Everything that the Air Force Space Command is saying indicates that [the turbines] would not be tall enough to interfere with operations,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Gentry, commander of the Air Force 6th Space Warning Squadron, Cape Cod Air Force Station, the group responsible for running the radar facility.

But wind farm opponents, specifically the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, point to a larger study now being undertaken by the Department of Defense, one that won’t be available until spring. That study, says the Alliance, will be more comprehensive and was itself prompted by issues with the Air Force’s initial analysis.

“Until we have a written report in hand that we can review to understand the parameters of the study, it would be inappropriate to offer comment,” said Charles Vinick, president and CEO of the Alliance. “It is my understanding that there is a larger study under way and it would be premature to offer conjecture on what that might find.”

According to Gentry, whose squadron answers to the Space Command, the command issued its original decision in 2004. That decision said the 130 wind turbines proposed by Cape Wind Associates for Horseshoe Shoal would not affect PAVE PAWS, the common name for the Air Force’s phased-array-warning system. That system, Gentry added, serves two distinct missions: the early warning search for submarine launched ballistic missiles and inter-continental ballistic missiles as well as the surveillance of objects in space such as satellites, the space shuttle or the International Space Station.

In September, he said, Congress asked the command to revisit its findings. “They did that,” said Gentry, “and they stand by their original position.”

Gentry added that he is well aware of the importance the wind farm project has for Cape Cod. As a result, he has asked the command to go over its analysis one more time as a precautionary measure.

“They’ll have another report in about a month but we don’t expect the results to change,” said the commander.

Mark Rodgers, Cape Wind’s spokesman, said the decision shows that, “as far as national security is concerned, Cape Wind is not going to negatively affect the operations of PAVE PAWS.” Cape Wind, he said, and other renewable energy projects add to national security by lessening the nation’s dependence on energy from foreign countries.

Chuck Kleekamp, vice president of Clean Power Now and a retired electrical engineer, dealt with phased-array radar during his work for a federally contracted research center. He also served as chairman of the technical advisory committee to the PAVE PAWS public health steering group. The recent news, he says, didn’t surprise him.

“I don’t want to infer that I’m the Air Force’s expert,” said Kleekamp. “All I’m saying is that, based on my professional experience, the bottom of the [PAVE PAWS] beam is well over 1,000 feet above Horseshoe Shoal.”

Last year’s study by the Department of Defense, undertaken at the request of U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, Democrat of Quincy, called the Air Force’s 2004 analysis “overly simplified and technically flawed” and called for more exhaustive study.

Given that the defense study has yet to be completed, Vinick warned against what he called the “false impression” that the turbines would have no harm on military radar.

Commenting not on Vinick’s remark but only on the findings of the Space Command, Gentry emphasized that the operational needs of the radar station were the driving forces behind the command’s analysis.

“They were simply looking at the mission of the 6th Space Warning Squadron,” he said.