Pentagon conducts successful salvo missile defense test
- 5 years ago
LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA — The U.S. military said it successfully tested a missile defense system to knock down an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile class target on Monday, according to Reuters.
The test was meant to simulate how well the U.S. could respond in the event of a missile threat from a country like North Korea or Iran.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said two ground-based interceptor missiles were launched in the test.
The first interceptor hit and destroyed the re-entry vehicle, and the other "looked at the resulting debris and remaining objects, and, not finding any other re-entry vehicles, selected the next 'most lethal object' it could identify, and struck that," it said.
The dummy target was launched from the Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the two interceptors were launched, the agency said.
According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon is putting additional billions of dollars into expanding its arsenal of missile interceptors, which are based largely at Fort Greely in Alaska.
The test was meant to simulate how well the U.S. could respond in the event of a missile threat from a country like North Korea or Iran.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said two ground-based interceptor missiles were launched in the test.
The first interceptor hit and destroyed the re-entry vehicle, and the other "looked at the resulting debris and remaining objects, and, not finding any other re-entry vehicles, selected the next 'most lethal object' it could identify, and struck that," it said.
The dummy target was launched from the Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the two interceptors were launched, the agency said.
According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon is putting additional billions of dollars into expanding its arsenal of missile interceptors, which are based largely at Fort Greely in Alaska.