System used to swat missile crafted by Bay State’s Raytheon
The U.S. military shot down a medium-range ballistic missile during a test near Hawaii late Tuesday night with the help of a missile system designed by Waltham-based Raytheon.
The Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai Island launched the target missile as sailors aboard the destroyer USS John Paul Jones tracked it with radar and fired an interceptor — the Raytheon-built Standard Missile 6 — to shoot it down.
“The missile gets some help and guidance, but forpart it’ s an activesaid Mike Cam pi si, Raytheon’ s SM- program director. s going. It knows what it’ s going for. It engages the threat ., it effectively engaged the target .”
Speaking to the Herald from Hawaii, Camp is is aid the Missile Defense Agency came to Raytheon around 2012 and asked whetherthe SM -6, which is also target short-range cruise missiles, aircraft and ships, c ould also take on a ballistic missile threat.
“This test was against a surrogate medium-range ballistic missile ,” Camp is isaid .“We ask ,‘ what’ s the biggest, baddest, threat that can be simulated or thrown upat us ,’ and we fired the SM -6 missile after it .”
The hit was hailed by th emili tary.yt he on’ s stock has also climbed.
“This was a key milestone in giving our Aegis B MD ships an enhanced capabilityto defeat ballistic missile sin their terminal phase ,” Sam Gr eaves in a statement .“ont inue developing ballistic missile defensetechnologies to stay ahead of the threat as it evolves.” e cent tensions between the UnitedStates and North Korea—and just a day after the rogue states hot an intermediate range missile over Japan—Camp is is aid theexercise had been long-planned. Headded more than 330 of the $2.5 million missiles havebeen delivered to the Navy.