Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pentagon successfully tests missile defense system
Rocket destroys dummy warhead over Pacific Ocean
Military officials say a rocket launched from the California coast destroyed a dummy warhead fired from the Marshall Islands.
WASHINGTON — A much-anticipated test of the nation’s homeland missile defense system succeeded Tuesday, when a rocket launched from the California coast hit and destroyed a target warhead fired into space from across the Pacific Ocean, U.S. officials said.
The launch, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, unfolded early afternoon under foggy conditions. The target missile was launched from thousands of miles away, at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The director of the missile agency, Vice Adm. James Syring, called the intercept “an incredible accomplishment.”
“This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent,” Syring said in a statement released by the agency.
The statement continued: “Initial indications are that the test met its primary objective, but program officials will continue to evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test.”
The towering rocket was launched from an underground silo about 60 miles northwest of Santa Barbara in the latest test of the nation’s troubled homeland missile-defense system.
The test was conducted amid stepped-up concerns over the security threat posed by North Korea. Under leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has detonated underground nuclear devices three times in the last five years and has greatly accelerated its testing of ballistic missiles.
On Monday, a North Korea test missile flew about 280 miles before landing in the Sea of Japan — the 12th missile reportedly launched this year by the Pyongyang government.
North Korea’s actions have helped to focus attention on Tuesday’s test of the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, which has cost taxpayers more than $40 billion to date.
The test was the system’s first attempted intercept of a target missile in nearly three years. Syring has told Congress that the test would be the system’s first pursuit of an “ICBM-range target,” flying at speeds closer to what the U.S. might confront in an actual attack.
The GMD system is intended to protect America from a limited-volume nuclear-missile strike by a non-superpower, such as North Korea. The system has 36 operational rocket interceptors — four at Vandenberg and 32 at Fort Greely, Alaska, according to a Missile Defense Agency spokesman. The agency plans to increase the fleet to 44 by year’s end by adding interceptors at Fort Greely.
The system has been plagued by engineering-related problems. Since GMD was made operational in 2004, the interceptors have failed to hit and destroy target warheads in 6 of 9 flight tests. The missile agency lists one of those six, conducted in September 2006, as a success.
But the Pentagon’s director of operational testing and evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, informed Congress that his office’s analysis found that although the interceptor made “glancing” contact with the target it failed to destroy it.
The test failures have occurred even though the exercises were scripted for success in ways that could not be expected in battle, according to present and former military officials and other specialists.