Posted on 03/30/2005 4:39:18 PM PST by 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.
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...
That's it - tell the world - wanna bet the ChiComs will use this for target practice?
Heh, have a little more faith in the navy.
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.
No room on Shemya?
Should be quite exciting in the "Roaring Forties".
" ... 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.
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!
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.
I was on Shemya, 1960-61. GE
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.
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.
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? |
http://bmdssc.jntf.osd.mil/MDA_Photo_Library/sbx.shtm
Here is a whole website about it.
This sounds like something that ought to not be advertised(?)
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.
Mean Annual Temperature 39º F Mean Annual Snow Fall 70" |
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Min Surface Winds Max |
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Jan |
32 |
16KTS----------100KTS |
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Feb |
31 |
17KTS-----------80KTS |
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Mar |
32 |
16KTS-----------73KTS |
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Apr |
35 |
16KTS-----------82KTS |
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May |
39 |
14KTS-----------66KTS |
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Jun |
42 |
12KTS-----------59KTS |
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Jul |
47 |
11KTS-----------60KTS |
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Aug |
49 |
12KTS-----------63KTS |
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Sep |
48 |
12KTS-----------70KTS |
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Oct |
42 |
15KTS-----------79KTS |
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Nov |
36 |
18KTS-----------77KTS |
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Dec |
33 |
18KTS-----------108KTS |
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