US missile interception system fails test
The test missile (the target) was launched from the U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site, located on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, a missile-testing center used by the U.S. military because of its isolated location.
The intercepting missile was launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which serves the U.S. Air Force Space Command and also houses a missile-testing center.
The interception was supposed to have been carried out using missiles with “hit-to-kill” warheads. The last successful test of the system based on this type of warhead was held over four years ago, in December 2008.
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The GMD system, which is supposed to intercept warheads in space, comprises part of the American defense plan for dealing with ballistic missiles. According to statistics from the American Missile Defense Agency, the intercepting missiles are based in Alaska and at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, and in 2010 the MDA had 30 such interceptors. The Department of Defense also stated that the purpose of the GMD system was to protect the country against the threat of attack by long-range ballistic missiles.You mean like from North Korea? That's great news... (Not)....
According to the report on the Bloomberg news website, the $34 billion system was in a testing hiatus after two tests in 2010 using a new, more sophisticated interceptor warhead (the CE-II) also failed. The recent test did not use the new warhead, which will be tested later this year. Of the 17 interception tests of the system, the interceptor succeeded in hitting the target in only eight cases.But let's cut the US defense budget some more. What could go wrong?
Labels: anti-missile systems
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:04 PM
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