The Huntsville Times April 8, 2009
Why did radar skip missile launch?
By Shelby G. Spires
A key part of a Huntsville-based missile defense program was sidelined during Sunday's launch of a North Korean missile over Japan.
Missile defense experts want to know why.
They question the military's decision not to use the $900 million advanced sea-based radar platform, developed and managed here, to monitor the controversial launch.
Missile Defense Agency managers decided to keep the Sea-based, X-band Radar platform - essentially an offshore oil rig with a giant radar - in port at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to continue maintenance work, according to an agency spokesman.
"The radar was in Pearl Harbor for long-planned maintenance and repairs," said Rick Lehner, a spokesman for MDA in Washington, D.C. "It will be involved in a very heavy flight test schedule over the next several months. For health, safety and environmental protection, the radar cannot be activated while in port."
The radar is part of the Ground-based Mid-course Defense program and is used to gather information and help guide missile interceptors that the Pentagon stores in silos in Alaska and California. Those interceptors are intended to destroy enemy missiles midway through flight, essentially at the edge of space.
Riki Ellison, who runs the Arlington, Va.-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, called it a lost opportunity.
"It was sitting in Pearl Harbor," he said. "This put our (ground-based system) out of play here. It could've been at the least tested, but was not.
"Why do we pay for this huge asset and not use it?"
Charles Vick, a missile defense expert who worked in Huntsville, said the Pentagon probably had plenty of sensors pointed at North Korea.
"There were five (advanced) destroyers there, plus satellite coverage, overflights of unmanned aerial vehicles, and there is an X-band site in Japan," said Vick, an analyst for GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va. "It was probably deemed not necessary to float that platform into the Pacific."
© Copyright 2009, The Huntsville Times
