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WASHINGTON - U.S. officials say the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March. This is the U.S. military will use a missile to destroy a satellite in space, NBC News reports. The spy satellite has lost all power and is expected to crash back on earth in early March, spreading debris and potentially hazardous fuel over several hundred miles.

Air Force Lieutenant General Henry 'Trey" Obering, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) director, announced the successful completion today of a multiple simultaneous engagement involving two ballistic missile targets. This was MDA's latest "hit to kill" intercept flight test conducted jointly with the U.S. Navy off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. For the first time, the operationally realistic test involved two unitary "non-separating" targets, meaning that the target's warheads did not separate from their booster rockets. This was the 32nd and 33rd successful "hit-to-kill" intercepts since 2001. Designated as Flight Test Standard Missile-13 (FTM-13), it marked the tenth and eleventh successful intercepts,...

The US is offering India one of the world's most formidable shipboard missile systems that has the potential of being integrated with the country's indigenous missiles. There was "some interest" in the Indian defence establishment in the Aegis system but neither has the US made an offer nor has India made any formal request for it, says Royce Caplinger, managing director of Lockheed Martin India, whose US parent manufactures the system. "I am sure though that if you ask for it, you will get it," India Strategic defence magazine quotes him as saying. The feelers to sell the Aegis are...

4 more U.S. Aegis ships in Japan to have SM-3 interceptors TOKYO, Nov. 27 KYODO The United States plans to install the new Standard Missile-3 interceptor system on four of its Aegis-equipped warships deployed in Japan in an effort to boost the capability of joint antiballistic missile defenses following North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, Japanese government sources told Kyodo News on Sunday. The plan would bring the total number of U.S. Aegis ships equipped with the SM-3 system in Japan to five after the U.S. military deployed the cruiser Shiloh, which is equipped with the system, at the Navy's...

After North Korea's July 5 missile tests, Japan, for the first time since 1945, is asking America to beef up its military presence in Japan. Why? Because Japan's hedging and tardiness in relation to missile defense has left its cities more vulnerable than they need be. That risks encouraging Pyongyang in its dangerous nuclear and missile brinkmanship. Senior U.S. and Japanese officials met in Washington on Aug. 7-8. The Japanese apparently asked the United States to send to Japan an additional U.S. warship equipped with the sophisticated Aegis radar system and the interceptor missile SM-3 (Standard Missile 3). This is...

DoD Finds Cruise Missile Defense 'Gaps' InsideDefense.com NewsStand | John Liang | August 17, 2006 A Pentagon assessment of the U.S. capability to defend the homeland against incoming enemy cruise missiles has found what it calls “capability gaps” that may not be solved until 2015. As a result, the Air Force's directorate of operational capability requirements is leading a Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System study “to determine the best approaches for mitigating high-risk joint gaps in the [Homeland Air and Cruise Missile Defense of North America] mission area,” according to an Aug. 9 request for information posted on Federal...

The number of vessels participating in the show of force — and some of the specific war games they played — were fine-tuned to train for countering long-range missiles even though the exercises were scheduled long before the current threat from North Korea. Led by the U.S. Navy, the countries participating included Japan, South Korea, Chile, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain — the last still viewed as a Pacific naval power in view of its colonial legacy and strong ties to other participants. The exercise, called RIMPAC, the acronym for Rim of the Pacific, held every two years...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. warship has successfully knocked down a short-range missile fired from Hawaii, the Pentagon has said, amid global concerns about a possible North Korea missile test. An interceptor rocket fired from the cruiser USS Shiloh knocked down the warhead from a target missile about 250 miles off Kauai shortly after noon (6 p.m. ET), the Defense Department's missile defense agency reported on Thursday. The U.S. missile defense agency said Thursday's test had been scheduled for months and was not prompted by indications that North Korea was planning to test launch a long-range missile, AP reported.

Upgraded Raytheon Standard Missile-3 Intercepts Separating Ballistic Missile Target PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE FACILITY, KAUAI, Hawaii, June 22, 2006 /PRNewswire/ -- A Raytheon Company (Nachrichten/Aktienkurs) -produced Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) 3.6 Weapon System destroyed a ballistic missile target today outside the earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. It was the seventh successful intercept for Aegis BMD's SM-3. The flight mission, Flight Test Maritime-10, was the first to use the new Block IA version of SM-3, which Raytheon is scheduled to deliver to the Missile Defense Agency later this year. The SM-3 Block IA provides increased...

Ten Years Later, a Successful Demonstration of a Sea-Based Terminal Defense Against Ballistic Missiles by Baker Spring, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #1125 June 13, 2006 | | In 1995, The Heritage Foundation’s Missile Defense Study Team proposed to Congress a comprehensive plan for developing and deploying an effective global defense against ballistic missiles.[1] The panel was chaired by the former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Ambassador Henry F. Cooper, and among its recommendations was a proposal to evolve the existing AEGIS weapons systems onboard Navy surface ships for air defense into a missile defense system. Last month, the Navy...

US-Japan missile defense test called successful Wed Mar 8, 8:21 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - An interceptor missile was fired over the Pacific in a successful test of a new nosecone developed as part of a US-Japan missile defense program, the US Missile Defense Agency said. ADVERTISEMENT The modified SM-3 missile was launched by an Aegis cruiser off Hawaii and successfully deployed the new Japanese-designed nose cone at 2048 GMT, the agency said. "This flight test mission is an important milestone in the project and is an example of the close coordination between the US and Japan in ballistic missile...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An interceptor missile fired from a US Navy cruiser shot down a mock warhead over the Pacific after it had separated from a medium-range missile, the US military said. It was the sixth successful intercept in seven attempts since the tests of the sea-based missile defense system began in 2002, the Missile Defense Agency said. The sea-based system is designed to intercept short- and intermediate-range missiles with interceptor missiles fired from Aegis warships. The United States is developing a separate ground-based system in Alaska and California to intercept long-range missiles. Thursday's test was the first to intercept...

TOKYO (AFP) - The United States has concluded a deal to allow Japan's licensed production of US-developed surface-to-air missiles which will constitute the core of a joint missile defense system, a report said. The two governments sealed a memorandum of understanding in March on the licensed production of Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) interceptor missiles, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported in its evening edition. US Lockheed Martin Corp. is expected to sign a contract within the current fiscal year which ends in March 2006 to license Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. with PAC-3 production, the influential daily said. Officials were not...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An experimental naval interceptor shot down a short-range ballistic missile target during a test over the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, missile defense officials said. It is the fifth kill in six tries for the interceptor, called a Standard Missile-3, said Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. During the test, a target ballistic missile, similar to a Scud, was launched from the island of Kauai at 4 p.m. ET. The USS Lake Erie, a cruiser equipped with the Aegis radar system and stationed 100 miles offshore, tracked the ballistic missile and then fired the...

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Japan has welcomed news that the U.S. Navy will position a destroyer with sophisticated radar in the Sea of Japan, a milestone in the plan to provide a defensive shield against missile attack from hostile states such as North Korea. Tokyo's chief Cabinet Secretary, Yasuo Fukuda, said the plan would strengthen the bilateral military alliance, adding that Japan shared U.S. concerns about ballistic missiles. The threat posed to Japan by North Korea was accentuated when in 1998 Pyongyang fired a medium-range Taepo Dong-1 ballistic missile clear across the Japanese archipelago before it landed in the...

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy will deploy in September a guided missile destroyer to the Sea of Japan equipped with newest missile defense tracking technology. “As part of the President’s directive to accelerate the fielding of a [ballistic missile defense] Initial Defensive Operations capability … the Navy will deploy in the Sea of Japan, beginning this September, and on a virtually continuous basis thereafter, a guided missile destroyer to serve as a Long-Range Surveillance and Tracking platform,” Navy Secretary Gordon England said Monday at the Missile Defense Conference in Washington. The yet-to-be-identified destroyer will be a Pacific Fleet asset,...

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A missile from a U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser knocked out a dummy warhead over the Pacific Thursday, the fourth intercept in five such tests of a sea-based anti-missile shield, the Pentagon said. The Standard 3 missile fired from the Lake Erie off Kauai in the Hawaiian islands "successfully engaged the target with hit-to-kill technology" about four minutes after the target was launched, said Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency. The last test, on June 18, failed. The sea-based defense is to be integrated into a multilayered missile shield. President George W....

<p>Preliminary data from a sea-based missile-defense test show that the failure of a solid-fuel guidance system caused a Navy interceptor missile to miss a target missile, Pentagon officials said.</p> <p>Officials familiar with the test results, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a solid-fuel engine used to control the interceptor's kinetic warhead stopped functioning and the warhead did not hit a target missile near Hawaii on Wednesday night.</p>