The Radar That First Detected North Korea's SLBM

[Monthly Defense Times Editor-in-Chief An Seung-beom] Israel IAI’s EL/M-2080S Super Greenpine radar is an upgraded version of the EL/M-2080 Greenpine ballistic missile early warning radar. The Republic of Korea Air Force introduced two Greenpine radars in 2014 and has been operating them, and in April 2017 decided to procure two additional upgraded units.

The Greenpine radar is an L-band (1GHz ~ 2GHz) active phased array radar designed for early detection and tracking of ballistic missiles. It provides early warning of ballistic missile threats, designates zones to direct friendly ballistic missile engagement fire control radars, and can backtrack the launch point of ballistic missiles.

The Israel Defense Forces have operated this system under the name Oren Yarok since 1998. It detects and tracks various Iranian-made short-range ballistic missiles and rockets launched by Hamas, calculates their launch points, enabling the IDF to strike Hamas rocket launch sites.

The EL/M-2080S Super Greenpine radar recently acquired by the ROK Air Force offers extended detection range compared to the existing Greenpine radar, enhanced electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) capabilities, increased number of simultaneously tracked targets, improved antenna gain, tracking accuracy, and higher precision in calculating impact points and launch locations.

Developed by Israel to operate in conjunction with IAI’s Arrow surface-to-air missile system, it provides high accuracy and reliability in the tracks generated while tracking targets.

Although the antenna size of the Super Greenpine radar is the same as the existing Greenpine radar, it incorporates a greater number of L-band transmit-receive modules. To control and process signals from more transmit-receive modules, it employs upgraded signal processing and data processors compared to the Greenpine radar. To arrange more modules within the same antenna size, the modules have been replaced with ones that have higher power density and output relative to their volume.

Whenever North Korea launches ballistic missiles, the first system among major ballistic missile detection systems in Northeast Asia to detect and track them has been the ROK Air Force’s EL/M-2080 Greenpine radar.

In particular, the Greenpine radar uses the longest wavelength among the ballistic missile detection systems possessed by the ROK military, combined with high transmission power, resulting in minimal ionospheric attenuation and enabling tracking at the highest altitudes.

When North Korea first launched a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the Greenpine radar was the first to detect it, calculate the launch point, and identify the missile as an SLBM.