Another Bull's-Eye For Missile Defense

IBD Editorials ^ | August 5, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff

[Kaslin]

SDI: If you missed the news, which isn't hard given how poorly these things are covered, our "unproven" missile defense proved itself again last week, when a U.S. warship downed a simulated North Korean missile in flight.

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The test, conducted in Hawaiian waters by the Navy and the Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency (MDA), was the 23rd firing by ships equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system. It was the 19th success, including the shoot-down of a dead U.S. spy satellite last year.

A short-range ballistic missile simulating a missile like North Korea's Nodongs or Scuds was fired from the Pacific Missile Test Range on the island of Kauai. In position to intercept was the Aegis destroyer Hopper, which fired a Standard Missile-3 to shoot it down about 100 miles above the Pacific in an exercise dubbed "Stellar Avenger."

As part of the exercise, the destroyer O'Kane simulated an engagement and the cruiser Lake Erie detected and tracked the target missile. An MDA statement said the Hopper then directed its interceptor to a "direct body to body hit, approximately two minutes after leaving the ship."

In February 2008, it helped Lake Erie using an SM-3 succeed in shooting down the National Reconnaissance Office's NROL-21 Radarsat, weighing 2.5 tons, before it could strike the earth with its deadly hydrazine fuel tank nearly full.

Aegis was conceived as part of a layered missile defense capable of intercepting a missile at all stages of flight — the boost or launch phase, in-flight and as its warhead descends toward its intended American target, whether it be a city or a military installation.

[Kaslin]

[Blueflag]

Dang! the missile hit a target 100 miles *UP* and XX miles down range in about 2 minutes.

Wow! Just wow!