Military back on Kauai
to test sea-based missile
Six months after a missile fired from sea failed to connect with an airborne target in a test of a ballistic missile defense system, military officials return to Kauai today to try again.
The test is the first by the federal Missile Defense Agency since June, when an interceptor missile fired from a Navy cruiser at sea missed the target rocket launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands.
Today's exercise will again involve an Aegis cruiser deployed at an undisclosed location in the Pacific firing a Standard Missile-3 interceptor, said Chris Taylor, an agency spokesman in Washington.
The window for conducting the test using another target rocket fired from Barking Sands is between 7 a.m. and noon, Taylor said.
Objectives of the test include evaluating the guidance, navigation and control mechanisms of the Standard Missile-3 kinetic warhead, which is designed to destroy its target by colliding with it rather than using a large explosion. The defense has been compared to hitting a bullet with a bullet.
Taylor said officials also plan to evaluate long-range surveillance and tracking systems of the Aegis Weapon System -- which combines communications, radar and weapons technologies -- in "increasingly complex, stressing, ballistic missile engagement scenarios."
This is the third of six sea-based tests evaluating an upgraded solid divert and altitude control system, or SDACS, which helps guide the kinetic warhead to the airborne target. Prior to the failed test in June, an interceptor successfully collided with its target in a November 2002 test.
President Bush ordered the Pentagon last December to have ready for use within two years a bare-bones system for defending American territory, troops and allies against attack by ballistic missiles, calling such action an essential step toward providing defenses against 21st-century threats such as missiles armed with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.
Under Bush's plan, 20 Standard Missile-3 interceptors would be placed aboard three Navy ships with improved versions of the Aegis system that uses radar to detect and track hostile missiles and cue on-board weapons to intercept them.
This sea-based system was outlawed under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but Bush gained the flexibility of testing it when the United States withdrew from the treaty last year.
The plan also calls for the development of ground-based interceptors.