The Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Northern Command, and the Space Force marked the completion of construction on the long-range discrimination radar (LRDR) site at Clear Space Force Station, Alaska, during a ceremony on Monday.
The multimission LRDR is designed, for now, to better track incoming ballistic missiles. It combines the capabilities of lower frequency radars, which can track multiple objects in space at long range but are unable to help warfighters determine which objects are a threat, with the capabilities of higher-frequency radars, which have a more limited field of view but are better able to “discriminate” among multiple objects and figure out which are dangerous.
As ballistic missiles are launched and shed portions of themselves along their trajectory, including decoy and countermeasure material, the LRDR will help to determine which of those objects must be targeted by the missile defense system.