New Chinese radar looks toward Japan, satellite image shows

MELBOURNE, Australia — A satellite photo has revealed that China has built a new long-range, early-warning radar that can be used to detect ballistic missiles from thousands of miles away, likely giving it coverage of all of Japan.

The image, taken on February 2022 by commercial satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies and published on Google Earth, show that a new Large Phased Array Radar, or LPAR, has been built at an existing mountaintop site in Yiyuan County, Shandong Province, some 70 miles southeast of the provincial capital Jinan.

The new array is pointed in a northeasterly direction and was built sometime after November 2019. Its completion can potentially give China early warning of ballistic missile launches from North and South Korea, most of Japan and even parts of Russia’s Far East.

The first LPAR at the site, located at 36°01′30″ N, 118°05′31″ E, is some 2,300 feet above sea level. It was finished sometime in 2013-2014 according to Google Earth’s historical imagery and is oriented toward the south-southeast, almost certainly to provide radar coverage of Taiwan .

China is also known to operate additional LPAR sites at Lin’an in Zhejiang Province and Heilongjiang Province. These sites enable early warning coverage of Japan, the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan from multiple angles.

Another site at Korla in Xinjiang Province provides early warning coverage of India. In addition to providing warning against ballistic missile launches, LPARs can also be used for satellite tracking and general space surveillance.

The capabilities of the Chinese LPARs are not known, although the beam of the similar AN/FPS-115 radar found in the U.S. Pave Paws network can be deflected up to 60 degrees from the array’s central boresight axis, allowing each array to cover an azimuth angle of 120 degrees.

Previously released photos of China’s LPARs show that the array is also sloped, similar to that of the AN/FPS-115 which is sloped at an angle of 20 degrees, allowing the beam to be directed at any elevation angle between 3 degrees and 85 degrees.

The range of the Pave Paws radar network has not been officially published, although Encyclopedia Britannica says that the system “is supposed to detect targets with a radar cross section of 10 square meters at a range of 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km)”.

China has invested considerably in advancing its capabilities for strategic situational awareness as part of its sweeping overall military modernization program. The country’s LPARs are an integral part of China’s early-warning, missile-defense and space-tracking network, which also includes a growing number of space-based sensors and a network of over-the-horizon radars.

Mike Yeo is the Asia correspondent for Defense News.

澳大利亚墨尔本——一张卫星照片显示，中国已建成一种新型远程预警雷达，可用于探测数千英里外的弹道导弹，其探测范围可能覆盖整个日本。

该图像由商业卫星图像公司 Maxar Technologies 于 2022 年 2 月拍摄，并发布在 Google Earth 上。图像显示，在山东省益源县一座现有的山顶上，已经建造了一座新的大型相控阵雷达（LPAR），该地点位于省会济南东南约 70 英里处。

新的导弹阵列朝向东北方向，于 2019 年 11 月之后建成。它的建成有可能使中国能够提前预警来自朝鲜、韩国、日本大部分地区甚至俄罗斯远东部分地区的弹道导弹发射。

该站点的第一个LPAR（低角度雷达反射截面积雷达）位于北纬36°01′30″，东经118°05′31″，海拔约2300英尺。根据谷歌地球的历史图像，它于2013-2014年间建成，朝向东南偏南，几乎可以肯定是为了提供台湾的雷达覆盖范围。

据悉，中国还在浙江省临安市和黑龙江省设有其他LPAR站点。这些站点能够从多个角度对日本、朝鲜半岛和台湾地区进行早期预警。

位于新疆库尔勒的另一个站点提供对印度的早期预警覆盖。除了提供弹道导弹发射预警外，LPAR 还可用于卫星跟踪和一般空间监视。

中国的 LPAR 的性能尚不清楚，尽管美国 Pave Paws 网络中类似的 AN/FPS-115 雷达的波束可以从阵列的中心瞄准轴偏转 60 度，使每个阵列能够覆盖 120 度的方位角。

此前公布的中国 LPAR 的照片显示，该阵列也是倾斜的，类似于 AN/FPS-115，其倾斜角度为 20 度，允许波束指向 3 度到 85 度之间的任何仰角。

Pave Paws 雷达网络的探测范围尚未正式公布，但《不列颠百科全书》称该系统“应该能够探测到雷达横截面为 10 平方米的目标，探测距离为 3,000 海里（5,600 公里）”。

作为其全面军事现代化计划的一部分，中国已投入巨资提升战略态势感知能力。中国的近程防御雷达（LPAR）是其预警、导弹防御和天基跟踪网络的重要组成部分，该网络还包括数量不断增长的天基传感器和超视距雷达网络。

Mike Yeo 是《防务新闻》的亚洲通讯员。