Rocket Motor Arrives in Kodiak Nov 7-8

Rocket motor arriving for possible December launch from Narrow Cape
Article published on Thursday, Nov 06th, 2008
DAILY MIRROR STAFF

A rocket motor and associated hardware will arrive at the Kodiak State Airport late Friday and be moved to the Kodiak Launch Complex at Narrow Cape early Saturday, according to a Missile Defense Agency news release.

The rocket motor and hardware will be used by the Missile Defense Agency in an upcoming test launch from KLC in December or January to target an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. An Air Force C-17 aircraft, carrying the rocket motor will arrive at the airport after the airport has closed for the night. It will then be delivered to KLC via the Chiniak/Pasagshak Highway in a convoy.

Rezanof Drive near the Coast Guard Base and the State Airport will close as the convoy transitions onto the highway. Safety precautions are being taken to assure the safety of the public and every effort will be made to limit possible inconvenience while the convoy moves the rocket to KLC, the release said.

In a separate news release, MDA announced the arrival of an AN/TPY-2 radar unit in Juneau to support the upcoming test. The radar arrived at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration facility at Lena Point, Wednesday, after being flown from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii. This is a temporary deployment and the radar will be removed from the site shortly after the test is completed.

According to MDA, the AN/TPY-2 is a high-resolution X-Band radar used to detect ballistic missiles early in their flight. It can track, identify, and estimate the trajectory of a threat missile, and then feed that information to the command and control system used to develop intercept solutions. The AN/TPY-2 is a transportable unit that can be deployed around the world. Juneau was selected because its location provides an operationally realistic sensor picture for the simulated threat missile from Kodiak.