PARCS was built by General Electric as the Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR), part of the US Army's Safeguard Program anti-ballistic missile system.

PAR provided early warning of incoming ICBMs at ranges up to 2,000 miles (3,200 km), feeding data to the interceptor station, equipped with a shorter-range radar.

After Mickelsen was shut down, the Air Force's Aerospace Defense Command took over the PAR site and re-activated it in 1977 in the early warning role.

Nike-X was at attempt to address problems with the earlier Nike Zeus ABM system, which could only attack three or four missiles at a time due to its use of mechanically steered radars.

Remote batteries were equipped with a much simpler radar whose primary purpose was to track the outgoing Sprint missiles before they became visible to the potentially distant MAR.

[20] Under this model the PAR would not only be used for initial detection, but also help generate accurate tracks so the MSRs would know precisely where to look for their assigned targets.

It was known that the effect lasted for shorter periods at higher frequencies, so by moving to UHF the PAR would have a clear view more rapidly, without the expense of the microwave-frequency MAR.

Outside the atmosphere the massive amount of X-rays generated by a warhead's explosion can travel long distances, whereas at low altitude they quickly interact with air molecules within a few tens of meters.

The advantage to this approach is that the effect works over an area on the order of several kilometers, which allows a single missile to attack an incoming warhead in spite of it being protected by a cloud of decoys.

In contrast, Sprint and the even earlier Nike Zeus had to explode within about a hundred meters of the target to be effective, which was extremely difficult to arrange at long range, even without decoys.

[21] In this system, PAR was not only used for early detection and track generation, but was now responsible for long-range guidance of the Spartan as it passed out of the range of the MSRs, requiring further upgrades and making them even more important in the overall battle.

On 14 March 1969, President Richard Nixon announced it would be replaced by the Safeguard Program, which would deploy a small number of Sprint-heavy sites around the Air Force's Minuteman missile bases.

The idea now was to provide protection to the bases against any attempted sneak attack, ensuring the Minuteman missiles would survive and thus present a credible deterrent force.

[21] The decision to deploy the first two of potential twelve sites passed in the Senate in August 1969 by a single vote, that of vice president Spiro Agnew.

Extensive testing was carried out over the next year at GE's Syracuse offices, while the Army Corps of Engineers installed the heavy equipment.

[23] Through this period, construction on the MSR and missile batteries was continuing, and the entire Mickelsen base reached its Initial Operational Capability (IOC) in April 1975.

[12] Instead in 1993, ITT Federal Services took over operations and maintenance from PRC, Inc.[12] An Historic American Engineering Record was prepared and deposited with the Library of Congress.

[25] Since receiving a $6.7 million operations, maintenance, and logistics contract in 2003,[1] BAE Systems has maintained the radar and other EPARCS subsystems[28] (an extension was granted in 2012).

After receiving a $35.5 million operations, maintenance, and logistics contract with the U.S. Air Force in 2017, Summit Technical Solutions is the current contractor maintaining the radar system.