PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NAVY An Aries ballistic missile was fired yesterday from the Pacific Missile Range on Kauai as part of a successful missile-defense test.

Navy’s anti-missile
test on Kauai
hits the mark

Officials are pleased by the
success of a system that is
built to protect Navy ships

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By Anthony Sommer
tsommer@starbulletin.com

BARKING SANDS, Kauai >> For the second time in a row, high above the earth's atmosphere, the Navy's new ship-launched interceptor missile knocked down a target rocket yesterday fired from the Pacific Missile Range on Kauai.

"Oh my God, it was pretty," said Air Force Maj. Cathy Reardon, spokeswoman for the Missile Defense Agency, who watched on closed-circuit television from the Navy base.

"They had television cameras on both of the missiles, and you could watch the whole thing," she said.

Formerly called the Theater Ballistic Defense System, the missile recently was renamed the Sea-Based Midcourse Defense element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. It is designed to protect Navy ships as well as troops ashore from missile attacks. Millions of dollars have been spent to upgrade the Pacific Missile Range's tracking, telemetry and communications equipment for the tests.

The testing program is the range's top priority. It also is the Navy's premier submarine training area in the Pacific.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NAVY A Stabdard Missile-3 interceptor missile was fired from the Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie as part of a successful missile-defense test.

The SMD is a smaller cousin of the Ballistic Missile Defense rockets being tested at the Army's Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands against intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California.

The Navy is interested in developing a long-range missile defense system that would be fired from ships at sea.

Yesterday's shot was the fifth of nine scheduled tests at the Pacific Missile Range. Only one, the second in the test series, failed when the rocket's third stage did not ignite.

The first intercept was made in January. The next test is set for November or December.

The Missile Defense Agency said yesterday's test was not intended to be realistic. Future tests are expected to include the launch of multiple target rockets and interceptors.

The SM-3 missile, an advanced version of the Standard Missile used on about 50 cruisers and destroyers to protect Navy ships against attacks by aircraft, was fired by the Pearl Harbor-based Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie to intercept an Aries ballistic missile target launched from the Pacific Missile Range.

The Aries target was launched at 3:23 p.m. about 300 miles northeast of Kauai. The USS Lake Erie's computer programs and equipment developed a fire-control solution, and about six minutes after the Aries was launched, USS Lake Erie's Aegis Weapon System launched the SM-3.

Two minutes after launch, the missile's kinetic warhead acquired, tracked and diverted into the target, essentially one bullet hitting another bullet 100 miles above the earth's surface.