The Missile Defense Agency is not saying if its huge X-Band radar is ever going to get to Adak, where it is supposed to be home-ported. It spends most of its time in Hawaii or at sea in undisclosed locations.
According to Rick Lehner, the public affairs director with the agency, the huge floating golf ball is still alive in the federal budget, but there are no plans to operate it.
“People did have the impression that we were mothballing it, or cancelling it, or dropping the SBX altogether, which is not the case. Mainly, it’s just going to stay in one place for a longer period of time, but we’ll still have it available if we need it for defensive operations and also for future flight tests,” Lehner said.
Lehner says Missile Defense will make do with mobile X-Bands for its testing. And he’s just not sure now if the X-Band will ever make it to its home port.
“I don’t want to speculate, it never has yet because of its mission role in the Pacific, but you never know. We just don’t know at this point in time, but more than likely it will be available for operations when necessary,” Lehner said.
agutierrez (at) alaskapublic (dot) org | 907.209.1799 | About Alexandra
