The Defense Agency will improve its missile surveillance network by deploying four new radar units and upgrading seven others by fiscal 2009 to detect ballistic missile launches in North Korea, agency officials said Saturday.
The upgrades involve the EPS-3 radar system deployed at seven locations. The four new units will feature the newly developed EPS-XX system. Both types are designed to detect and track ballistic missiles flying at around Mach 10 at an altitude of more than 300 km, the officials said.
The seven units using the EPS-3 system are currently deployed in Hokkaido, Akita, Fukushima, Ishikawa, Kyoto, Mie and Saga prefectures. They will be upgraded over three years starting in fiscal 2006 into versions capable of tracking more than one missile at a time, they said.