Can Costly Radar Survive In Alaska?

It looks like a giant golf ball teed up atop a massive oil rig. It's 28 stories tall — and can detect an object the size of a real golf ball from 2,500 miles away.

The new Sea-Based X-Band Radar — SBX for short — is the eyes of the next generation of U.S. missile defense, a system designed to detect, track, and ultimately knock nuclear warheads out of the sky, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports. Its eventual home is under the likely path of any North Korean nukes fired at targets inside the United States.

"It's a very powerful radar, good resolution," says Phillip Coyle, senior advisor at the Center for Defense Information.

But it won't come cheap. The price tag is at $1 billion and counting. This raises the billion-dollar question: Can the SBX not only detect a hostile threat, but do it in the Bering Sea, home to some of the most unforgiving weather in the world?

"All that electronics is out in the middle of the ocean, and salt water and waves and bad weather and all, and electronics don't go well together," Coyle says.

In March, an independent study obtained by the Project On Government Oversight called the SBX "rugged and suitable" for the mission, but cited a letter in which the Alaska Coast Guard command called the waters "inherently dangerous."

"It's a matter of what the system is designed for. Is it designed for that environment? Is it designed to operate in that environment?," says Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defense Agency. "The answers to those questions was yes. Yes, it is."

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Watch more of Armen Keteyian's interview with Lt. Gen. Henry Obering.

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An internal Coast Guard communication, dated just last month, depicts a sense of anxiety about the project, warning of the "land mine potential" of any interview that questions "the system's suitability for operating in Alaska waters."

That's a pretty damaging document. "I don't know what they mean by 'land mine,' though," Obering says. "All I can tell you is, again, that the platform is well designed for the mission."

The SBX sat in Pearl Harbor for almost a year during its shakedown phase. Even in the warm Pacific waters, it was dogged by power failures, fuel leaks, and sun and salt disrupting sensitive hardware.

It's an expensive mistake if it misses. "If we can stop one more hit, one nuclear weapon from detonating on an American city, I think we will pay that back many, many times over with respect to that investment," Obering says.

The SBX is currently on sea trials near Hawaii. The hope is that it will be up in Alaska and running its intricate radar next September.