The TASS news agency reported that Russia will deploy the second 29B6 Konteyner over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) in the Kaliningrad region. The radar is capable of monitoring the airspace up to 100 km altitude and has range of 3000 km. It was developed by NPK NIIDAR, which is also a developer of Voronezh-DM radar. The first radar, near Kovylkino, Mordovia, Russia, became operational in December 2013 and entered combat duty on 1 December, 2019.
29B6 Konteyner (Container) radar is the new generation of Russian over-the-horizon radar, providing long distance airspace monitoring and ballistic missile detection. The system consists of two separate antennas arrays: one for the transmitter and one for the receiver. The receiver antenna array contains 144 antenna masts, each 34 m high. The array has three sections: The inner section is 900 m wide with a 7 m spacing between masts, and the two outer sections are each 200 m wide with a 14 m spacing. The total array width is 1300 m. The transmitter antenna array has 36 re-configurable masts and is 440 m wide.
The peculiarity of the system is that it is able to detect both high altitude targets, such as ICBMs (Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles), as well as low altitude flying air traffic, at very long distances, well beyond the line of sight. Any aircraft with a radar cross section comparable to the one of a Cessna light plane would be detected by the new radar, even if it is flying at low altitude. Even a fighter jet taking-off in the Netherlands could be seen by the 29B6 Konteyner (Container) radar station.
