Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Second SM-3 missile
test malfunctions

By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

BARKING SANDS, Kauai -- The Navy's second test of its new missile designed to protect ships and troops ashore from hostile medium-range rockets apparently was less than successful.

Following the launch yesterday from the cruiser USS Lake Erie far offshore at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, the Navy released only a terse statement: "USS Lake Erie (CG70) launched the SM-3 missile, which performed normally during launch, until an undetermined malfunction occurred. The cause of the malfunction cannot be determined until further flight data are analyzed."

The SM-3 is a modified Standard missile already in use as an anti-aircraft weapon aboard Navy ships.

The Navy is developing two missiles that will make up its Theater Ballistic Missile Defense system. The version tested yesterday is the longer-range weapon called the Theater Wide Missile.

A shorter-range version called the Area Missile is expected to be brought to Kauai for testing within two years.

Yesterday's test was designed to test the third stage of the missile. It was not fired at a target. The next in the test series was to test the guidance system with a test aimed at knocking down another missile.

The Navy did not say whether yesterday's malfunction would result in more testing being required.

The first test of the Theater Missile at the Pacific Missile Range Facility last September, designed to evaluate the missile's airframe, went flawlessly.

The Theater Ballistic Missile Defense system is the highest priority weapons development program in the Navy. Initial testing is done at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, but the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai has been designated as the primary test site.

A similar land-based system is being designed by the Army.

Both have much shorter ranges than the National Defense Missile that failed in a test at Kwajalein last week. The concept is similar, however: knocking down a missile with another missile above the Earth's atmosphere.