Missile Defense Radars are key components of BMD

Commentary: Mind the Gap: Don't Forget Missile Defense Radars | The National Interest

AN/TPY-2: America’s Portable Missile Defense Radar

AN/TPY-2 Radar

A key component of Ballistic Missile Defense is the radar, which detects and tracks inbound targets and controls interceptors. Overview

• High resolution, X-band, phased-array radar
• Acquires, tracks, discriminates, classifies, identifies, and estimates the trajectory parameters of all classes of threat missiles and missile components, and passes this information to other BMDS components or the THAAD weapon system.
• Transportable by air, ship, truck, and rail

Raytheon designed and built the AN/TPY-2 radar for the Ballistic Missile Defense System and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) weapon system.

Phased Array Antenna

It is the world's largest ground/air-transportable X-Band radar. The AN/TPY-2 is a high-power, transportable radar designed to detect, track and discriminate ballistic missile threats at long distance and at very high altitude, including space.

Interior View of TFCC Tactical Operations Station (TOS)

The AN/TPY-2 radar provides a common mission capability to the Terminal Base Mode in support of the THAAD weapon system, and the Forward Based Mode (FBM) with command, control, battle management and communications, enabling MDA's Ballistic Missile Defense System.

The radar uses a trailer-mounted, single-faced 9.2 m² wideband phased-array antenna. The antenna consists of 72 solid state transceiver modules, which supply a total of 25,344 antenna elements. The antenna beam shape and direction is controlled by a digital beamforming processor. The transmitters waveform used is linear frequency-modulated intrapulse modulation. The antenna unit is supported by an electronics unit and a cooling unit.

THAAD site

The electronic equipment unit houses radar control and signal/data processing equipment using modified software to provide acquisition and tracking of ballistic missiles of all ranges in the boost phase and the transition to the midcourse phase of flight. The system uses fiber optic datalinks as the to interconnect the system elements. The radar and system components require a total of 2.1 megawatts of power to operate.The entire AN/TPY-2 radar system includes:

• The phased-array Antenna Equipment Unit (AEU)
• A Cooling Equipment Unit (CEU) for use with the antenna array
• The Electronic Equipment Unit (EEU)
• A 1.3 MW Prime Power Unit (PPU)
• An Operator Control Unit (OCU) which lets soldiers see the radar’s results, monitor the system, and communicate. It has its own built-in power unit.

Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TPY-2)