Multiple-engagement Missile Defense Test is Mostly Successfu

[frigidmagi]

Spacenews

In what is being billed as its biggest and most complex test to date, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), supported by all three military services, simultaneously engaged five missile targets and destroyed three of them over the Pacific Ocean, the MDA said Oct. 25.

One of the interceptors, a Standard Missile 3 Block 1A, apparently failed to hit its ballistic missile target, while another passed close enough to its cruise missile target to have made a kill had its explosive warhead been activated, the MDA said. The Standard Missile 3 Block 1A is an operational interceptor that is currently deployed aboard U.S. and Japanese navy ships.

The targets involved in the exercise included an air-launched medium-range ballistic missile, two short-range ballistic missiles and two simulated cruise missiles, the MDA said. The interceptors launched at the targets were the Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Patriot Advanced Capability 3, and Standard Missile 2 and Standard Missile 3 systems, the MDA said.

The sprawling test took place over an area that included the Reagan Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the western Pacific and Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu, Hawaii. The date of the test was location-dependent: For Kwajalein, which is in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, it took place Oct. 25; for Hickam it was Oct. 24.

The total cost of the test to the MDA was $188 million, according to Pamela Rogers, a spokeswoman for the agency. The targets and interceptors involved launched from ground-, air- and sea-based platforms, the MDA said.

A THAAD interceptor, operated by Army forces along with a tracking radar on Kwajalein’s Meck Island, destroyed a medium-range missile that was launched from a C-17 aircraft that took off from Hickam, the MDA said in a press release. It was the THAAD system’s first intercept of a medium-range missile, the agency said.

Meanwhile, two Army-operated Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles successfully intercepted a low-flying cruise missile and a short-range ballistic missile almost simultaneously, the MDA said. The ballistic missile target was launched from an ocean-going platform northeast of Kwajalein.

Two more interceptors were launched from the Navy ship USS Fitzgerald, one at a short-range ballistic missile and one at a BQM-74 drone that simulated a cruise missile. The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system aboard the ship, consisting of tracking radars and a battle management system, was able to engage both targets, the MDA said. “However, despite indication of a nominal flight of the [Standard Missile 3] Block 1A interceptor, there was no indication of an intercept” of the short-range missile, the MDA press release said.

The engagement with the simulated cruise missile involved the Standard Missile 2 air-defense interceptor, a proximity-fused weapon designed to explode when it gets near its target. In a statement issued Oct. 26, the MDA said that during the test, the Standard Missile 2 passed within lethal range of its target, which would have been destroyed had the interceptor’s warhead been activated.

“A test conducted in this manner provides the Warfighter confidence the engagement was successful, and a valuable test asset (the BQM-74 drone) can be re-used,” the MDA said.

[Batman]

All three military sevices, I see.

[Josh]

No need to pick on the Coast Guard, they're out working hard right now.

[Batman]

Sigh. Including the Coast Guard there would be five? Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard?

[frigidmagi]

It meant all 3 services with anti-missile programs and gear Bats. The Marine idea was shot down. The other services panicked at the thought of teams of super-sonic Marines hi-jacking nuclear missiles in flight. *Sigh* There goes that plan.

[Batman]

Last I checked, Rhodey was Air Force and Tony a cilvilian

[B4UTRUST]

The other services panicked at the thought of teams of super-sonic Marines hi-jacking nuclear missiles in flight. *Sigh* There goes that plan.

I think it was more an act of preservation. We just didn't want you guys to hurt yourselves...

[frigidmagi]

Please we both know that y'all were just frightened at the thought of the Marines finally getting their own nuclear weapons.

[B4UTRUST]

You're right, we are. The AF and Navy have had them for years. The thought of the Marines getting their grubby paws on them and accidentally destroying a state or 3 worries the hell out of us. We don't want you guys to hurt yourselves or us by mistake.

[frigidmagi]

Big talk for the service who lost a warhead a few years back.

[B4UTRUST]

There is a large amount of difference between losing a car in a parking lot and letting kids take the keys and go joyriding when they don't have a license. Yes, I'm aware that is a stretched analogy. I haven't had coffee yet so it's the best I can come up with

[Josh]

Now I'm getting a vision of Air Force brass searching for their lost nuke in the couch cushions.

And installing that Sharper Image beeper that goes off when you clap would've only cost an extra fifteen million, too.