One day in the next few weeks, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will test its ballistic missile defense system by shooting a missile from a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean towards the waters off California's coast and trying to blast it from the sky.
A radar ship floating in the central Pacific's balmy waters will spot the missile and transmit information about its flight to the interceptor missiles trying to shoot it down. The primary radar in the upcoming test, the billion-dollar Sea-based X-band Radar, will be thousands of miles south from the Alaska island that was once planned as its home base.
Although military officials announced in 2003 that the SBX would be based at Adak, a former naval base far out along Alaska's Aleutian chain, the radar has never actually visited the island since being completed in 2005, and military commanders are currently discussing where and how the radar will be deployed. And while Alaska's role in the nation's missile defense system is steady, the radar that was once seen as a potential boost to Adak's economy may never be seen by the island's 200 residents.
When the decision to place SBX at Adak was first announced, the radar was seen as a key to creating a new economy on the island. After Cold War hostilities dissipated, the Adak Naval Air Station closed in 1997, and in 2004, the Navy pulled out, turning the land over to Aleut Corp., an Alaska Native regional corporation. At the time, Aleut Corp.'s chief executive said that the scale of the SBX project amazed him, and then-Sen. Ted Stevens said the radar was a good thing for the people who had taken over after the military left Adak.
Rick Koso owns a liquor store on the island, and he agreed that the radar would be a huge boon to the local economy. "We were sure hoping it would be tied up in Adak by now because we can use all the economic help we can get," he said.
Even though SBX hasn't come to Adak yet, MDA spokesman Richard Lehner said that the island is still the radar's home base, and military commanders are discussing how the radar should be utilized. "We only have the one, so we have to be very fluid in how to best use it," he said.
Currently the SBX is controlled during testing by the MDA and during operations by three Combatant Commands (Pacific Command, Northern Command, and Strategic Command). SBX will transition to the Navy later this year, and at that time the Navy will become instrumental in deciding where the radar ship is based and how it is used.
The SBX is a mobile unit, and was never meant to spend all its time in one location. But no matter where SBX operates, it will send data about incoming missiles to interceptor sites like the one at Interior Alaska's Fort Greely.
In a lunchtime speech to Commonwealth North last week, Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, MDA's director, said that Alaska is important in the fight against a large number of the threats he's worried about, North Korea among others, and that he's planning on having Fort Greely operational thirty years out.
O'Reilly also referenced a $200 million upgrade to nearby Clear Air Force Station in his speech, and while that money has not yet been appropriated it's unlikely that the MDA's director would specify a number without the idea being approved by the Pentagon. It seems probable that at least some of that money will be appropriated in the federal budget the President will propose in February.
But the radars at Clear and the SBX radar are different types. While the radars at Clear are part of the nation's early warning system and are scanning the sky at all times, the SBX has a fine beam that must be focused in a specific area, said Lehner.
A $26 million mooring was built for SBX during the summer of 2007 in Adak's Kuluk Bay. The mooring consists of steel chains that run from eight 75-ton anchors embedded in the ocean floor up to buoys floating on the surface. The SBX has been near Adak twice, but has never actually docked there.
About 85 people live and work on the ship that carries SBX, so if the radar were to dock at Adak, it would increase the island's population by about 40 percent.
Mike Swetzoff, Adak's mayor, said that it would be nice if the radar came and stayed because of the added people and the ripple effects on the local economy.
"Oh golly days, I bet my business would pick up by a third at least," said Koso, the liquor store owner. "It would be a heck of an economic boost to the community."
Contact Josh Saul at jsaul_alaskadispatch.com