Sea-Based X-Band Radar

**Sea-Based X-Band Radar**
	Sea-Based X-Band Radar underway
Ship data
flag	United States
Callsign	AAMD
Whereabouts	in motion
Ship dimensions and crew
length	116 m ( Lüa )
crew	75
Others
Registration ; numbers	IMO no. : 8765412

Sea-Based X-Band Radar entered Pearl Harbor on the deck of the Blue Marlin on January 9, 2006 en route to Adak Island , Alaska .

The Sea-Based X-Band Radar ( SBX also SBX-1 ) is a floating, mobile, self-propelled radar station that can work even in strong storms and rough seas. It is part of the missile defense system the United States ( Ballistic Missile Defense System ). The platform's IMO number is 8765412 and the callsign is AAMD .

The sea-based X-band radar is mounted on a semi-submersible double-hulled oil drilling platform of the fifth generation of the CS-50 type, designed in Norway and built in Russia . The conversion of the platform was carried out by the AMFELS shipyard in Brownsville , Texas ; the radome was designed by the Kiewit Corporation in Ingleside , Texas and built onto the platform. It is near Adak Iceland in Alaska stationed, but can throughout the Pacific are used to attacking ballistic missiles, especially intercontinental ballistic missiles ( "ICBM") to track.

Structure and use

View of the AESA antenna inside the radome

The platform is part of the "GMD" (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense) of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Since it is sea-based, it can be taken to where it is most needed for expanding missile defense defense. The main task of the SBX will be to distinguish enemy warheads from dummies that are also sent out during an attack, as well as precisely tracking the trajectory of the warheads identified.

The platform has many small radomes for communication purposes and a large central dome that encloses a 2,400 ton X-band AESA radar . This radar has an area of 384 square meters, of which 248 square meters are pure antenna area, well over 45,000 transmit / receive modules, which are arranged in a spacious configuration, which carry out the GMD's target recognition and target tracking tasks with a very long range for the middle flight phases intended to support ICBMs. The radar has an electrical output of over a megawatt. Thanks to its mechanical and electronic alignment, it covers a sector from 2 to 90 degrees vertically and a range of ± 270 degrees horizontally.

The radar system used was developed from the Aegis combat system and is part of the MDA's multi-level BMDS (Ballistic Missile Defense) program. An important difference to Aegis is the use of the X-band frequency range (Aegis uses S-band, the Patriot system uses C-band). The radar was designed and built by Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems for Boeing , the main contractor of the MDA project.

The director of the MDA, Lieutenant General Trey Obering, indicates that the SBX an object the size of a baseball from the Chesapeake Bay from distant 2,900 miles in San Francisco can follow.

The radar will also guide anti-missile operations from missiles stationed in Alaska and California, as well as local naval combat units.

The CS-50 platform was built as "Moss Sirius" at the Vyborg shipyard in Russia for Moss Maritime (today part of the Saipem offshore company belonging to the Italian Eni ). It was bought by Boeing for the SBX project, provided with a ship propulsion system, power supply and crew quarters at the AMFELS shipyard in Brownsville and equipped with radar at the Kiewit shipyard in Ingleside.

This first SBX system will be stationed on Adak Island, part of the Aleutian Islands , where it can detect approaching missiles from North Korea and China , but can also be used throughout the Pacific region. The name of the platform, SBX-1, suggests that more are in the pipeline. Three more CS-50 platforms were under construction at the Sevmash shipyard in Russia in early 2007 ; however, it is not known whether they are made for the United States or another customer.

On March 20, 2007, the SBX-1 successfully captured a (non- armed) ICBM warhead that was fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base , California to Kwajalein Atoll.

In early April 2013, CNN reported that the SBX-1 system had been deployed to monitor North Korea.