On June 21, South Korea completed the environmental
impact assessment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
A key objective of the environmental assessment was to measure the electromagnetic waves emitted
by the THAAD system's radar and examine if they pose any risks to locals living near the base.
A statement stated Ministry officials worked with experts to analyze data
gathered from the site and determined that the radar posed no discernible health risk.
This opens up the way for its full-fledged deployment in the country.
The timing of this disclosure is interesting. Xing Haiming, the Chinese ambassador to Seoul,
sparked controversy earlier this month during a dinner with politicians by indicating that South
Korea's efforts to enhance its alliance with the United States would eventually lead to regret.
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes why the potential permanent deployment of THAAD in South
Korea is dreadful development for China ? Let’s get started.
In July 2016, American and South Korean military officials agreed to deploy the
THAAD missile defense system in the country to counter North Korea's growing threats and use of
ballistic missile and nuclear tests; each THAAD unit consists of six truck-mounted launchers,
48 interceptors, fire control and communications unit, and AN/TPY-2 radar.
Seongju County in North Gyeongsang Province was chosen as a THAAD site,
partly because it is out of range of North Korean rocket artillery along the DMZ.
The six-launcher THAAD battery was installed in South Korea in 2017.
From the very beginning, China was opposed to this move by the U.S & South Korea.
China which is South Korea’s biggest trading partner, has even taken some
retaliatory economic against South Korea for this.
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense is a United States Army anti-ballistic missile system,
which is designed to shoot down short, medium,
and intermediate range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase.
THAAD system is being designed, built,
and integrated by Lockheed Martin Space Systems acting as the prime contractor.
Key subcontractors include Raytheon, Boeing, Aerojet, Honeywell, and BAE Systems to name a few.
THAAD is strictly a ballistic missile defense system and is not designed for general air
defense duties like defense against aircraft. It is considered to be one of the best when it
comes to ballistic missile defense systems having been designed from grounds up for this purpose.
THAAD is engineered to defend against ballistic missiles in
challenging scenarios like even if the rival launches a barrage of missile and
simultaneous interception of multiple missiles is required.
The system is quick to deploy and mobile, which makes it a very flexible weapon.
An important aspect is that it is compatible with other systems like Patriot PAC-3 and is
designed to integrate into the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) of the U.S military.
THAAD system consists mainly of 3 components- radar, battle manager, and missile launch battery.
The interceptor missiles are guided by the
Raytheon Systems AN/TPY-2 ground-based radar (GBR).
THAAD can also be cued by military satellites such as Brilliant Eyes.
The AN/TPY-2 Surveillance Transportable Radar also called the Forward Based X-Band Transportable
(FBX-T) is a long-range, very high-altitude active electronically scanned array surveillance radar.
It possesses a range of 2,900 miles or 4,700 km. It has
two modes – one to detect ballistic missiles as they rise, and another that can guide
interceptors toward a descending warhead. Since the radar uses X-band frequency and narrow
beam widths, it is good at isolating smaller objects, such as a warhead vs. space debris.
The radar passes information related to the threat such
as speed and trajectory to the Battle Manager.
The Battle Manager is basically the brain for the system and it extrapolates the information
received by it predicts the path of the incoming missile and directs interceptors against it.
The interceptor missile is around 6 m in length and is equipped with a single-stage
solid-fuel rocket motor with thrust vectoring. The missile has a speed of 8.24 Mach or 2.8 km/s.
The guidance system is Indium antimonide Imaging, coupled with Infra-Red Seeker Head.
It has an operational range of 200 km or around 125 miles and
a flight altitude of 150 km or 93 miles The missile has no explosives and uses
the 'Hit to Kill' approach. It has a Kinetic Kill Vehicle to knock out incoming missiles.
A THAAD battery can include up to 9 transporter-erector-launchers,
each carrying 8 interceptors for immediate launch.
The major
concern among Chinese officials is that they believe the purpose of the THAAD
system, "which detects and intercepts incoming missiles at high altitudes,
is actually to track missiles launched from China" not from North Korea
The long-range radar of the system can be used to look way further than the South Korean airspace.
Chinese aerial assets in its range can be profiled with this very powerful radar.
This is the reason China feels that THAAD could be
used to spy on the country and is a national security concern.
Its ability to work with Patriot battery deployed
already by South Korea, means , it can act as force multiplier
Sometime back, U.S. missile agency director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said during a press briefing,
"If you take a AN/TPY-2 (THAAD radar), which can see a lot further than a Patriot battery radar,
then now you can extend and take full advantage of the kinematic capability of a Patriot”
It remains to be seen how things pan out in the coming days.