12 Nov 2024        12:32:38 pm

International Relations

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)

Tags : Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)

Topic: Defense

Why in the news?

• The United States will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to Israel, along with the troops needed to operate it, even as Iran warned Washington to keep American military forces out of Israel.

Source: The Hindu 

About Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)

• It is an American transportable, ground-based anti-ballistic missile defense system designed to shoot down short, medium, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase (descent or reentry) by intercepting with a hit-to-kill approach..
• First proposed in 1987 and then developed after the experience of Iraq\'s Scud missile attacks during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, it was finally deployed in 2008.
• It cannot be used as a form of attack against an enemy.
• It is designed to intercept and destroy short and medium-range ballistic missiles in their final flight phase.
• THAAD is coupled with space-based and ground-based surveillance stations, which transfer data about the incoming missile and inform the THAAD interceptor missile of the threat type classification.
• It is designed and manufactured by the USA company Lockheed Martin.
• It has been previously deployed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Guam, Israel, Romania as well.
• The THAAD interceptor carries no warhead, instead relying on its kinetic energy of impact to destroy the incoming missile.

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