LOS ANGELES – An anti-missile missile under development by Israel and the United States missed its target Thursday in its latest test off the California coast, a spokesman said.
The Arrow missile failed to intercept an air-launched missile over the Pacific and both fell into the water, said Chris Taylor, spokesman for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
“The engineers don’t yet know what happened,” Taylor said.
It was the 13th Arrow intercept test and the eighth test of the complete weapon system. Officials have not said how many of the tests have been successful.
Last month, an Arrow hit a missile launched from a platform on the ocean range off Point Mugu.
The Arrow system is continuing to undergo development after first being deployed by Israel after the Gulf War, when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at that nation.
In Thursday’s test the Arrow was trying to hit a short-range, air-launched target. Taylor described the target only as representative of a threat that Israel might encounter.
A C-17 aircraft dropped the target missile 360 miles west-northwest of San Nicolas Island, its booster ignited and it flew correctly, Taylor said. Radar picked up the target and the Arrow was launched from San Nicolas.
The intercept should have occurred at 10:10 a.m. PDT west-southwest of San Nicolas, which is about 70 miles southwest of the Los Angeles coastline.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/9504650.htm
By: Erez - 31st August 2004 at 10:55
Steering Failure Causes Arrow-2 To Miss Target
By: Erez - 28th August 2004 at 12:57
The Green Pine system can locate the real warhead. How?
I don’t know exactly, but the last test showed it can.
And remember that the Arrow got a kill zone of about 50m so if the missile releases decoys they will be destroyed too.
By: PLA - 28th August 2004 at 12:11
I read somewhere that new ballistic missiles tend to alter course. Even on final. A defence meassure like multiple (fake) bombs. Isn’t that making these defences weapons less capable? And how much can this arrow do after dropping the booster (g’s)?
By: Erez - 27th August 2004 at 23:38
If it really cant hit simple and 50s Scuds then i wonder how it would cope with modern BMs like the Iskander and many others, especially those fast ones.
As mentioned in the link I gave above, it wasn’t a Scud but an American SRALP target missile.
But again, the target missile’s type doesn’t have anything to do with the Arrow’s interceptor’s failure.
The idea behind the test was to discover whether the Arrow system can identify and lock on a war head spliting from its missile, and it did.
By: bring_it_on - 27th August 2004 at 15:07
yeah i saw a pic of a pac-3 battery where they showed 2 being launched and both made a har left turn almost immediately out of the box…was amazing..
By: wd1 - 27th August 2004 at 13:16
…. in a real-war situation it’s much better to shoot off another missile at the inbound ballistic missile than risk having a nuke/bio/chem warhead landing on your head.
By: PLA - 27th August 2004 at 12:56
The system needs to be tested and improved. THey will learn from the error. And no system is 100% perfect. But do they fire more then one missile at a target? I did not knew that?
By: bring_it_on - 27th August 2004 at 06:12
this is what happens during testing…which is the entire reason u test a missile to see its defects and hopfully straighten them out
By: ohadbx - 27th August 2004 at 05:49
well someone (cant remember the name or position) in the project spoke on the morning news and said that this test was to simulate a capability that could be available in FUTUE BMs, but no BM currently has it.
He also said that the reason for the failure was a pure technical probelm in the missile itselft, not a problem in the design or performance.
He also mentioned that in real war conditions in a case like this a second missile would be launched, and of course the probability that 2 missiles will fail is low.
The info released on the subject says the system identified the real warhead and sent the missile to its direction, but at some point the missile failed.
So I guess all the stuff you said here is not very true.
By: Srbin - 27th August 2004 at 03:58
An unfortunate incident, if it canot intercept decoy warheads on Scud Ds, one wonders how far away an Arrow capable of intercepting Shahab class missiles really is.
Kind of true.
If it really cant hit simple and 50s Scuds then i wonder how it would cope with modern BMs like the Iskander and many others, especially those fast ones.
I think Missiles technologically are way ahead of Anti-Missile technology currently.
By: GDL - 27th August 2004 at 03:53
No system is 100% infallible. Get used to it.
By: Erez - 27th August 2004 at 00:10
Some more info here:
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/469946.html
The missile identified its target, the warhead, and started to approach it. It was only then the missile failed. The IAI currently believe something went wrong with the systems on the missile that were supposed to drive the missile to the route of interception of the missile.
Notice that it’s only a technical problem on the missile, the interceptor, and not a failure of the entire systems, that worked well. We hope to find the problem of the interceptor, and learn from our failures towards a better operational missile.
By: Sameer - 26th August 2004 at 22:22
An unfortunate incident, if it canot intercept decoy warheads on Scud Ds, one wonders how far away an Arrow capable of intercepting Shahab class missiles really is.
By: alexz33 - 26th August 2004 at 21:40
Scud-D with a decoy war head.
By: Srbin - 26th August 2004 at 21:01
What missile was it exactly that it didnt hit?
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August 26, 2004 at 8:55 pm