September 28, 2006 :: AP :: News
The U.S. Army has now activated an X-band radar in northern Japan to track regional ballistic missiles. On Tuesday, September 26, Brigadier General John E. Seward hosted a ceremony at Camp Shariki in the northern Aomori state to activate the X-Band radar. The system was moved earlier this summer from the U.S. military’s Misawa Air Base in Misawa, also in northern Japan. The two nations began working on the radar in 1998 after North Korea fired a Taep’o-dong 1 ballistic missile over northern Japan. The powerful X-band radar can identify objects from thousands of miles away and is designed to differentiate between decoys and real missile warheads. It is part of an ongoing U.S. and Japanese collaboration on missile defense that includes the joint production of sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors capable of destroying incoming missiles and the deployment of land-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors around Japan.
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