SEOUL: South Korea’s only Aegis-class destroyer capable of tracking North Korean missiles is out of service for maintenance, officials said Thursday, amid signs that Pyongyang is preparing for further launches.
The 7,600-ton Sejong the Great has led efforts to track North Korea’s missile launches since it was commissioned last December. It was used to confirm the North’s April 5 long-range rocket launch.
The North is now said to be preparing to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile as well as several medium-range missiles.
Some analysts speculate the long-range missile could be fired to coincide with a June 16 US-South Korean summit in Washington.
The Sejong the Great has radar capable of monitoring targets about 1,000 kilometres (625 miles) away and can shoot down targets within a radius of 150 kilometres.
The defence ministry said it was sent to a shipyard on May 23 for routine maintenance, not because of a systems glitch.
“Maintenance will be conducted until the end of this month,” a spokesman told AFP. Workers would be helped by US technicians from Lockheed Martin, which built the ship’s radar system.
He denied a newspaper report that the destroyer had suffered a software glitch in its missile tracking radar system.
The Korea Times quoted a military source as saying: “A flaw in the data transmission system linked with the missile tracking radar in the Aegis destroyer was found.”
Tensions have been running high on the Korean peninsula since Pyongyang tested a nuclear bomb for the second time on May 25 and launched a series of short-range missiles.
South Korea’s second Aegis ship is scheduled to be commissioned in 2010 and a third one is being built.
