The U.S. has sent its most advanced mobile radar system from the Pearl Harbor naval base to the Pacific ahead of North Korea's expected rocket launch in mid-April, CNN reported last Friday. The Sea Based X-Band Radar-1, which sits atop a floating platform, has the ability to search or track targets up to 2,000 km away and is capable of monitoring the North's missile launch without having to come near the Korean Peninsula.The system also can communicate with potential U.S. interceptor missiles at Air Force bases in Alaska and California which could shoot down a target missile, CNN reported. But it is unlikely that the U.S. will have to launch an interceptor missile since the North said it would launch the rocket in a southward direction.
The U.S. military declined to confirm that the radar is being deployed for the North Korean launch, but one senior Pentagon official, on condition of anonymity, called the SBX-1 deployment "precautionary," CNN added.