Japan deployed a third ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptor system at an airforce base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo on Wednesday, continuing its own ballistic missile defense initiative, Kyodo News said.
Two launchers of the PAC-3 were brought into the Air Self-Defense Force's Takeyama base early in the morning, Kyodo said. The installation follows two PAC-3 deployments in Saitama and Chiba prefectures respectively last year. All three prefectures are considered within the Tokyo metropolitan area.
The deployments is "to enforce missile defense" in the region, Kyodo quoted the defense ministry as saying.
Under Japan's two-phased missile defense system, an incoming ballistic missile is first countered by firing Standard Missile-3 interceptors from Aegis ships at sea when the missile is still outside the atmosphere, and if that fails, a PAC-3 will be fired from the ground.
Japan plans to deploy the advanced missile defense system at a total of eleven bases by fiscal 2010 ending March 2011, the report said.
Source: Xinhua
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