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U.S. Tests Sea-Based Missile Defense System
The U.S. Navy in an exercise yesterday tracked and destroyed two ballistic missile targets fired nearly simultaneously from The two targets were launched at about 6:12 p.m. Hawaii time from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands on the island of Kauai, U.S. Missile Defense Agency chief Lt. Gen. Henry Obering said in a statement. The Aegis ballistic missile defense system on-board the USS Lake Erie detected and tracked the mock enemy missiles and calculated a firing trajectory. Within about two minutes, the ship fired two Standard Missile 3 interceptors that hit and destroyed the targets. The targets were destroyed outside earth’s atmosphere, about 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and 250 miles northwest of Kauai. The interception occurred roughly two minutes after the launch of the interceptors, destroying the targets using the force of their impact. The target missiles destroyed in yesterday’s test, dubbed Flight Test Standard Missile-13, were the 10th and 11th targets successfully intercepted by the Aegis system out of 13 total attempts and 12 separate flight tests. The targets destroyed yesterday were also the 32nd and 33rd eliminated in “hit-to-kill” interceptions since 2001. The test was the first to use unitary “nonseparating” targets whose warheads did not separate from their booster rockets. The Aegis-equipped Japanese destroyer JDS Kongo conducted long-range surveillance and tracking of the target missiles in preparation for a live-fire test next month of the ship’s ballistic missile defense system. Japan’s planned test would be its first attempt to intercept a ballistic missile from one of its ships. Yesterday’s test was the fourth
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