On April 2th, 2005, a heavy-duty double crane lifted the radome onto the platform and, by the 29th, the SBX dome was secured and the system connected onto the platform while still docked at Ingleside. With all work now completed, the platform was towed by the ocean going tug, Dove, into the Gulf of Mexico for sea trials beginning on July 1st, 2005. Upon successfully completing her trials, she returned dock-side at the Kiewit facilities. Her crew continued to train on her various systems and, on November 18th, 2005, the Dutch semi-submersible heavy-lift ship, the Blue Marlin, took the SBX-1 platform and departed from Ingleside on her way to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by way of the southern coast of South America.
The Blue Marlin was cleared for such heavy work for, in sorties past, she has hauled off shore drilling rigs weighing some 60,000 tons. The Blue Marlin floods her ballast tanks to lower the 120,850 sqft well deck below the water's surface. This allows the floating cargo to be positioned over the well deck for proper loading. The ballast tanks are then pumped out and the well deck begins to rise and, in turn, lift her cargo load which now resides above sea level. The Blue Marlin itself can cruise at 14.5 knots (26.9 km/h; 16.7 mph) which has proven a somewhat remarkable quality considering the combined weight of both ship and cargo.
By mid-December of 2005, Blue Marlin passed through the Western Straights of Magellan on her way to Hawaii and, on January 10th, 2006, she entered Pearl Harbor having travelled 15,000 miles. She now entered a period of refit due to the long sea crossing. After being released from repair and completing a shakedown in Hawaiian waters, the sea tug Dove towed the SBX-1 to her first assignment in Kulak Bay, Alaska. There, the platform was attached to eight 75-metric ton anchors embedding her into the seabed, this by mid-October of 2006. By April of 2008, SBX-1 had traversed over 4,000 nautical miles in the Pacific while on multiple mission assignments. On January 31st, 2010, the SBX-1 was involved in a test of a simulation centering on a North Korean or Iranian missile launch. The test failed due to a software problem as well as a failure on the test vehicle simulating the missile itself.
Scheduled maintenance was begun by Boeing in May of 2011, this at the Vigor Shipyard in Seattle. The SBX-1 received a $27 million radar upgrade. Work was completed in August of 2011 to which the SBX-1 departed Seattle for deployment once again in the Pacific. In April of 2012, the SBX-1 left Pearl Harbor and was assumed deployed to observe North Korea's threatened missile launch during the span of April 12 - 16. The SBX-1 again was again redeployed to the area to monitor yet another proposed North Korean missile launch to be attempted late in 2012.
On April 3rd, 2013, the United States Department of Defense indicated that the SBX-1 mission was intended to provide radar coverage for possible missile launch threats anywhere in the world. With her speed of around nine knots, travel time to Japan proved approximately 16 days from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The DoD also indicated the SBX-1 is to undergoing additional scheduled sea trials.
Content ©MilitaryFactory.com; No Reproduction Permitted.