U.S. to Float Giant Missile-Defense Radar to Alaska

Reuters ^ | March 30, 2005 | Jim Wolf

[Righty_McRight]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is readying an ultra-sophisticated radar system to float slowly around the world to Alaska where it will play a key role in a multibillion-dollar project to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

The 2,000-ton Sea-Based X-Band Radar is to be hoisted aboard a platform as large as two football fields this week or next, depending on wind and weather in Corpus Christi, Texas, where it has been under initial sea trials.

The radar is designed to track and distinguish long-range ballistic missiles from decoys that could be used in an attack on the United States.

After being assembled and tested extensively in the Gulf of Mexico, the entire structure will set sail on a five- to seven-month trip around Cape Horn at the tip of Latin America and into the Pacific bound for Alaska's Aleutian islands.

"It will likely leave for its long journey some time between June and August," said Richard Lehner of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, which is developing a multilayered shield against warheads that could carry chemical, germ or nuclear weapons.

The rig, capable of making 7 knots under its own power, should putter in to its primary base at Adak Island, in the Aleutians, by the end of the year, Lehner said. Details of its route and its escorts are not being disclosed publicly for security reasons, he said.

The platform's on-board propulsion system makes it possible to operate it in oceans around the world, the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement last week. It said the Sea-Based X-Band Radar platform vessel had arrived in Corpus Christi on March 17 from a shipyard in Brownsville, Texas.

Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - news) is the prime contractor for the so-called Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, and Raytheon Co. (NYSE:RTN - news) manufacturers the high-powered X-Band radar, which can use 69,632 multi-sectional circuits to transmit, receive and amplify signals, according to Raytheon.

Once the radar is mounted on the platform, a modified oil drilling rig, the setup will tower 282 feet from its keel to the top of the radar dome and displace nearly 50,000 tons while under way and fully crewed.

The main deck measures about 230 feet by 390 feet, too wide to pass through the Panama Canal, Lehner said.

It will be linked to the system's nerve center in Colorado Springs and to a total of 18 ground-based interceptor missiles due to be deployed by the end of this year at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

[Righty_McRight]

The platform for the Sea-Based X-band Radar, a key component of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Ground-based Midcourse Defense Program, departs Brownsville, Texas, for the next step in it's assembly on March 13, 2005. When the platform arrives in Corpus Christi, Texas, the Raytheon-built SBX radar will be lifted and installed on the ocean-going vessel. The United States is readying the ultra-sophisticated radar system to float slowly around the world to Alaska where it will play a key role in a multibillion-dollar project to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles. The 2,000-ton Sea-Based X-Band Radar is to be hoisted aboard a platform as large as two football fields this week or next, depending on wind and weather in Corpus Christi, Texas, where it has been under initial sea trials. The radar is designed to track and distinguish long-range ballistic missiles from decoys that could be used in an attack on the United States. Picture taken March 13, 2005. NO SALES REUTERS/Boeing/Handout

[MD_Willington_1976]

Wonder if it will go through the Discovery Passage on it's way up North...The Discover Passage is the narrows between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland, quite a few vessels go through there on their way North to Alaska...

[George from New England]

That's it - tell the world - wanna bet the ChiComs will use this for target practice?

[Righty_McRight]

Heh, have a little more faith in the navy.

[traviskicks]

Well, apparently its not vital to the 'basic missile defense', but I hope it gets there saftely.


U.S. 'can shoot down N. Korea missiles now'
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1364391/posts

If nuclear missiles were suddenly fired at the United States from North Korea, the U.S. is ready to shoot them down.

That's the opinion of Major Gen. John Holly, head of the missile-shield program for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

"If directed, we could provide a limited defense against an attack out of Northeast Asia," Holly told Alaska lawmakers, according to the Associated Press.

[struwwelpeter]

No room on Shemya?

[tet68]

Should be quite exciting in the "Roaring Forties".

[AngrySpud]

" ... Adak, Alaska."

Wonderful place in the Aleutian Islands! It used to be a Naval Air Station -- I was stationed there '83 - '86. Great place to raise a family.

[Issaquahking]

Sure... down at the old dump would be great. Nothing to hit there but the old russian foxes, and a raven or two. After 11 months of work on Shemya, I can speak as an authority on best places to hide it there!

[Cicero]

I hope they have a backup, because no matter how seaworthy this platform is, and it sure looks pretty clumsy to me, they could easily lose it going around the Horn. The weather there can be unbelievably nasty.

That looks like a lot of area to expose to the wind.

[Waco]

I was on Shemya, 1960-61. GE

[WilliamWallace1999]

Oh please, it's no freakin secret. Hell, you can't hide something that big even in Texas. Everybody on Padre Island Beach has seen it.

WW

Texas beachcomber.

[WilliamWallace1999]

You are seeing the platform in its port elevation. It floods the legs and settles until the deck is about 30 feet above the water. It has a huge ballast and a center of gravity well below the surface. Won't blow over in a hurricane. It's been tried.

[Nick Danger]

Was this thing designed from the get-go as a sea-going device, or are we doing this to avoid the political hassle of trucking it in pieces through Canada?

[WilliamWallace1999]

http://bmdssc.jntf.osd.mil/MDA_Photo_Library/sbx.shtm

Here is a whole website about it.

[The Duke]

This sounds like something that ought to not be advertised(?)

[Prophet in the wilderness]

You can be rest assured that they have navy ships protecting this rig, it will be protected like a aircraft carrier is.

[Cicero]

Hopefully you're right. I've seen 25 foot waves off the coast of Maine in a small sailboat. Cape Horn can be as bad as it gets.

[struwwelpeter]

Remember the weather on Eareckson?

Mean Annual Temperature 39º F Mean Annual Snow Fall 70"
Month	Mean Temp (º F)	Min Surface Winds Max
Jan	32	16KTS----------100KTS
Feb	31	17KTS-----------80KTS
Mar	32	16KTS-----------73KTS
Apr	35	16KTS-----------82KTS
May	39	14KTS-----------66KTS
Jun	42	12KTS-----------59KTS
Jul	47	11KTS-----------60KTS
Aug	49	12KTS-----------63KTS
Sep	48	12KTS-----------70KTS
Oct	42	15KTS-----------79KTS
Nov	36	18KTS-----------77KTS
Dec	33	18KTS-----------108KTS

[Issaquahking]

Yuppers, I most certainly remember a military site that should have NEVER been shut down. When Mogadishu(sp?) was a hot spot on the globe and the secret stuff started coming in fast and furious...the code gurus would let us know that it was "coffee time" and we'd clear out of the comm. areas.

Lot of war history there on WWII, what a place to have to fight on/from! On a good day you could see Attu, unfortunately never secured permission to get there.

In a year, there were three times that it was nice enough to actually go barefoot on the beach!

Waco, I am the second generation in our family to work on that island (neither plan on a return in this lifetime), and we both agreed that we should make it a base, and make Attu a prison!