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Courtesy of the U.S. Navy
The missile is designed to track and intercept incoming missiles.

Navy rates
Kauai missile test
a winner

The shot, fired from
130 miles out, was designed to
evaluate the airframe
stability and control

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By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

BARKING SANDS, Kauai -- The Navy last night successfully test-fired a missile designed to track and intercept an incoming missile.

The missile, fired from the cruiser USS Lake Erie 130 miles offshore, operated flawlessly. In the most recent prior test in July, the third stage failed to fire.

Last night's test was not intended to hit a target. The test was an evaluation of the SM-3's airframe stability and control, the Navy said.

The missile is part of the development of the Navy's Theater-wide Ballistic Missile Defense system, a shorter-range version of the controversial National Missile Defense program being tested at Kwajalein.

The Navy program uses the Standard Missile 3, an improved version of the missile long used by the Navy to protect its ships from hostile aircraft. All nine scheduled tests are being conducted at the Pacific Missile Range on Kauai.

Initial tests of a companion, shorter-range missile are being conducted at White Sands, N.M. That program is scheduled to be moved to Kauai in about two years. There also have been discussions about moving the testing of a similar Army missile designed to protect ground troops to Kauai.

The Navy program, which has been the service's top-priority weapons development for several years, has been controversial as well. Reports from both a blue-ribbon Pentagon committee and a General Accounting Office study have cautioned that the testing program may be too accelerated, and unanticipated flaws may not be noticed until the missiles are in production.

Even though no intercept took place, a target missile was first fired from Barking Sands and was used to test the computerized tracking aboard the Lake Erie, according to a Navy spokesman, Capt. Chris Taylor.

The Lake Erie, based at Pearl Harbor, recently was relieved of all other missions to serve as the test launch ship for the theater-wide missile defense program.

Rear Adm. Rodney Rempt, assistant chief of naval operations for missile defense, described last night's test as "a major positive event" in the Aegis program.