U.S. Plans Sea-Based Missile Defense Test

U.S. Plans Sea-Based Missile Defense Test
Wed Dec 10, 5:26 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon (news - web sites) on Wednesday said it planned to use a sea-based missile to shoot down a mock warhead over the Pacific Thursday for the first time since a botched drill last June.
   

The Missile Defense Agency said a "hit-to-kill" missile fired from the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie would try to intercept a dummy warhead fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai in the Hawaiian islands.


It would use information relayed by the destroyer USS Russell, sometime after noon EST, the agency said.


Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the agency, said the test, the fifth in a series and costing roughly $40 million, was the next step in integrating the sea-based Aegis weapons system into a planned multi-layered missile defense shield.


The test was designed to evaluate selected long-range surveillance and track functions of the Aegis system.


Taylor said the destroyer Russell would be sailing closer to Kauai, using its own Aegis system to detect the target missile and feeding that data to the USS Lake Erie, which would be patrolling several hundred miles off the island.


The agency said it would be the third developmental test using more complex ballistic missile engagement scenarios in an effort to simulate a more realistic operational scenario.


In a similar test on June 18, a Raytheon Co.-built Standard Missile 3 fired from the Lake Erie missed its target, the first miss in four attempts to shoot down an incoming short-range missile using the Aegis system.


Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Maryland, is the prime contractor for the Aegis weapon system and vertical launch system installed in Aegis cruisers and destroyers.