When North Korea test fired seven missiles in July, it shined a spotlight on U.S. military efforts to develop an anti-missile capability.
On Friday, the Defense Department announced that the Pentagon’s Missile Defense System had completed an important exercise over the Pacific, launching a missile from Alaska and destroying it with an interceptor rocket fired from California. It was the first test against a live target since December 2004 and February 2005, when missiles failed to launch from their silos.
The successful test is an encouraging sign that America’s fledgling missile defense system is advancing. Prior to Friday’s test, only five of the last 10 interceptor missile tests had been successful, the last one in 2002.
Though Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III has put an optimistic face on the program, even insisting that the U.S. could shoot down a North Korean missile, Pentagon officials have been more cautious, and rightly so.
If U.S. generals are going to be bragging about the missile defense system, they need to be sure it works – regardless of the weather. (The test, originally scheduled for Thursday, was postponed because of fog). Many billions are being poured into the anti-missile effort, and the Pentagon looks forward to the day, already delayed, when the system will be operational. In July, reports swirled that the U.S. might try to intercept a North Korea missile if it were lobbed toward the United States, but there was no confidence that such an intercept would be successful, and none was attempted. Any failure would have been an enormous setback.
Some experts believe that past test conditions were too controlled, the targets unrealistic and the outcomes exaggerated.In Friday’s test, a target missile was fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska, and an interceptor rocket armed with a “kill vehicle” launched from California’s Vandenburg Air Force Base. The refrigerator-sized kill vehicle locked on to the approaching mock enemy missile and flew into the 4-foot-long warhead at 18,000 mph, 100 miles above Earth.
The test was designed not to shoot down the target but to see whether the kill vehicle could get close to the warhead to test the tracking and sensor systems that would be used in an actual missile attack. So, the strike was a plus.
Friday’s test was encouraging, but of course there is much yet to prove. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is sounding realistic. After Friday’s test, he said he wouldn’t be fully convinced without more testing.
