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US anti-missile test successful
The US has successfully conducted its fourth anti-missile interception with a ground-based rocket fired from Marshall Islands intercepting an intercontinental missile in a test launched about 4,800 miles away, Pentagon officials said.
The US has successfully conducted its fourth anti-missile interception with a ground-based rocket fired from Marshall Islands intercepting an intercontinental missile in a test launched about 4,800 miles away, Pentagon officials said.
The rocket was equipped with a kill-vehicle interceptor
and took about 21 minutes after the authorities at Vandenberg Air Fore Base in California launched the target--a modified minuteman II ballistic missile with a mock warhead and three balloon decoys--at 9.41 pm or 0811 IST.
The rocket intercepted the missile over 140 miles above the Pacific Ocean in the middle of the missile's projected
flight, they said.
The test involved multiple elements of the proposed missile defence system, including a space-based missile warning sensor, ground-based early warning radar, prototype radar and communications at Kwajalein atoll and the joint national integration facility in Colorado. This was the sixth test. Four resulted in interceptions and two tests failed in the year 2000 because of malfunction by rockets and their kill vehicles.
Skeptics were unconvinced by the claim of success, pointing out that kill vehicle is told when the target will be launched, what it looks like and where it is headed. Chris Madison, director of the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said that success can be believed only when tests are conducted under realistic conditions.
Bureau Report
The test involved multiple elements of the proposed missile defence system, including a space-based missile warning sensor, ground-based early warning radar, prototype radar and communications at Kwajalein atoll and the joint national integration facility in Colorado. This was the sixth test. Four resulted in interceptions and two tests failed in the year 2000 because of malfunction by rockets and their kill vehicles.
Skeptics were unconvinced by the claim of success, pointing out that kill vehicle is told when the target will be launched, what it looks like and where it is headed. Chris Madison, director of the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said that success can be believed only when tests are conducted under realistic conditions.
Bureau Report