“The Missile Defense Agency announced today the completion of a successful “hit to kill” intercept in partnership with the U.S. Army for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense test element at the Pacific Missile Range Facility off the island of Kauai in Hawaii.
Preliminary indications are that planned flight test objectives were achieved. This test involved the intercept of a separating target (mock warhead separated from the booster rockets) in the “mid-endoatmosphere” (inside the earth’s atmosphere).
The target, representing a threat ballistic missile, was launched from a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft flying over the Pacific Ocean at 4:16 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time (10:16 p.m. EDT). Approximately six minutes later the interceptor missile was launched from a mobile THAAD launcher on the range facility. “
. . .
“Using current tactics, techniques and procedures developed by the US Army Air Defense School, soldiers, for the first time in a THAAD test, manually engaged the target using the system’s semiautomatic mode. Soldiers operating the equipment were not aware of actual target launch time. All of these factors provided increased operational realism to the test.
The U.S. Navy cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG-70), received a tracking cue from THAAD and used its advanced SPY-1 radar to successfully track the target, and conducted a simulated Standard Missile-3 interceptor missile launch to engage the target. “
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June 27, 2008 at 3:34 am