Photo Credit: Boeing (2005)

Don’t be concerned if you see this gigantic seaborne platform, pictured above, motoring into Puget Sound sometime today. The aliens haven’t arrived. But if they ever do, this thing will definitely know if they’re firing missiles at us.

It’s technical name is Sea-Based X-Band Radar, or SBX, part of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense system.

As the agency explains in a news release, “The SBX Radar is one of the sensors for our nation’s missile defense system. Its mission is to identify ballistic missile threats and relay that information to the battle management, command, control and communications system for missile defense.”

It’s coming to Seattle’s Harbor Island for three months of maintenance and upgrades under a $27.1 million contract won by Boeing.

More from the Peninsula Daily News, which spotted the SBX moving up the Strait of Juan de Fuca earlier today.

(Via mynorthwest.com)

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