Missile defense test
scores a direct hitThe test off Kauai is the Navy's
third success in four tries
BARKING SANDS, Kauai >> A missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser off Kauai destroyed a target missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility yesterday.
The success was the third hit in four tests of the missile. In the previous test, in June, the missile failed to hit its target.
U.S. NAVY
This missile was launched yesterday from the Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie off Kauai.
Yesterday's test also was a success for a series of components that will make up a rudimentary missile defense system President Bush has ordered to be activated beginning next year. The effort is being coordinated by the Missile Defense Agency, which oversees anti-missile programs being developed by the Army, Navy and Air Force, and was run by the military.
"It was all done by real Navy sailors," said Chris Taylor, spokesman for Missile Defense Agency.
By the end of 2004, several destroyers using sophisticated new detection equipment are to be on patrol along the nation's coasts. If they detect an incoming missile, they will feed the data to shore-based Army missile interceptors to knock them down.
By the end of 2005, up to 20 such destroyers are scheduled to be on patrol.
At the same time, two cruisers will be outfitted identically to the Pearl Harbor-based USS Lake Erie, which has been testing the Navy's sea-based interceptors over the past five years off of Kauai.
Two of the cruisers carrying sophisticated tracking equipment and batteries of missiles are scheduled to join the destroyers patrolling the coasts by the end of 2005.
The Navy missiles being tested at the Pacific Missile Range Facility are part of a three-tiered missile defense system designed to destroy hostile medium-range missiles.
U.S. NAVY
The Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie launched a missile yesterday as part of the Missile Defense Agency's latest Ballistic Missile Defense System test against a medium-range missile threat.
The Army missiles, an updated version of the anti-aircraft Patriot missile, are designed to hit hostile missiles as they descend toward their targets. The next generation of Army missiles -- the Theater High Altitude Air Defense, or THAAD, system -- is scheduled to begin testing from Kauai in two years when the Navy missile tests are completed.
The Navy ship-launched missiles are designed to kill hostile missiles at midcourse, the point at which an incoming missile is at the top of its arc high above the earth's atmosphere, is moving at its slowest speed and is most vulnerable. Like the Army missile, the Navy's interceptor is an upgraded version of its anti-aircraft Standard Missile 3. Delivery of those new missiles to the fleet had been scheduled for 2006, but the schedule appears to have been accelerated.
The Air Force is developing an airplane-mounted laser system to destroy hostile missiles after they have been launched and are still climbing. A modified Boeing 747 carrying the laser gun has been delivered to the Air Force, but the testing program has only just begun.
In yesterday's test both a destroyer and a cruiser played roles, just as they would in the proposed defense system for the coasts of the United States.
An Aries medium-range target missile was launched from Kauai at 8:10 a.m.
The destroyer USS Russell detected the target and fed data to the cruiser USS Lake Erie farther out to sea. The USS Lake Erie detected the target and fired its interceptor approximately two minutes after the target was launched.
The Aegis weapon system aboard the cruiser guided the interceptor. The warhead acquired and tracked the target and steered into it 85 miles above the earth. The target was destroyed about 8:14 a.m. by what engineers call a "kinetic kill," without explosives.
One of the primary objectives of the test was to evaluate the performance of the destroyer and cruiser team.
Two more tests using increasingly more complex scenarios are scheduled in the series. Tests have been about six months apart in the past.
