$2 billion floating missile defense radar back in Hawaii By Associated Press
HONOLULU — A large missile defense radar mounted on a modified floating oil platform has returned to Hawaii.
The $2 billion Sea-Based X-Band Radar was back at Pearl Harbor for regular maintenance and installation of system upgrades, Missile Defense Agency spokeswoman Maria Njoku told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser .
The Missile Defense Agency plans to keep the radar, which resembles a giant golf ball, at sea for more than 300 days in the next fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 to “address the continued missile test activity in North Korea.”
The agency plans to have the radar spend 330 days at sea each year between 2021 and 2024.
“With the addition of the long-range discriminating radar in Alaska, the homeland defense radar in Hawaii and the future Pacific radar, we will have in place a diverse sensor architecture in the Pacific to provide an improved and persistent” missile-tracking capability, former Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves testified in April.
