MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. Russian specialists are upgrading the country’s most powerful long-range over-the-horizon radar Daryal in the town of Pechora in the northwestern Komi Republic without withdrawing it from the combat duty it entered 35 years ago, the press office of the Mints Radio-Technical Institute said on Wednesday.

"On the day of the 35th anniversary, I thank all who contributed their knowledge, high organizational skills and determination to the Daryal long-range radar to ensure that we can live calmly. Today we successfully continue the work on improving the locator’s operational characteristics without impairing the combat duty regime," the press office quoted Institute CEO Alexander Osipov as saying.

The Mints Radio-Technical Institute is part of RTI Systems defense contractor.

As RTI reported, today this radar controls the airspace up to the northern coast of Alaska and Canada and fully covers Greenland and partially Iceland.

"Today, the Pechora radar is undergoing profound modernization and is the sole Daryal-class operational radar," RTI noted.

The Daryal is the sole radar capable of identifying small-size targets at long ranges. It can track even high orbital space vehicles in geo-stationary orbits.

The radar’s building is hundreds of meters high and the locator is equivalent to a city with a population of up to 100,000 people by the capacity of its power consumption and water supply.