Latonja Martin/Digital/Missile Defense Agency A medium-range ballistic missile target is launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii.
Posted on 08/30/2017 12:25:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The United States conducted a successful missile defense test that intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile off the coast of Hawaii early Wednesday morning, according to a statement from the US Missile Defense Agency.
The Standard Missile-6, built by major US defense contracter Raytheon, intercepted the missile target at sea in its final seconds of flight after being fired from the USS John Paul Jones.
The test comes amid heightened tensions between North Korea and the US. Earlier this week, an intermediate-range missile, identified by the North Koreans as a Hwasong-12, was fired over Japan.
A US official, however, told CNN the test had been planned for a long time and before North Korea's latest provocation.
The agency's director said the test was "a key milestone."
"We are working closely with the fleet to develop this important new capability, and this was a key milestone in giving our Aegis BMD ships an enhanced capability to defeat ballistic missiles in their terminal phase," MDA Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves said in the statement. "We will continue developing ballistic missile defense technologies to stay ahead of the threat as it evolves."
In another statement, Raytheon's SM-6 senior program director, Mike Campisi, said that the US government requested this technology earlier this year. It normally takes one to two years to create, but Raytheon said in the statement that it took them seven months.
"Earlier this year, our customer requested an enhanced capability to deal with a sophisticated medium-range ballistic missile threat," he said in a statement "We did all this -- the analysis, coding and testing -- in seven months; a process that normally takes one to two years."
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
HELLO FAT BOY !!!!
Great but, it it deployed already? This really sounds like an R&D success not a fleetwide upgrade.
The Democrat party and msm said president Reagan was nuts.
They can esad.
5.56mm
I think we see some shootdowns of Fat Boy’s space toys soon.
If we could design a missile to do loops over North Korea and then return, that would be cool.
The Democrat party and msm said president Reagan was nuts.
They can esad.
Bears repeating!!!
All we heard was “Nut job Reagan and his Star Wars fantasies were going to ruin the economy.”
Keep ships close off shore and take them out in boost phase...when they are most vulnerable.
Of course it is hard to determine where the missile is heading during boost phase.
Great chance to have some real life testing by using this to shoot down fat boys missiles.
Another brilliant Trump move in the 3D chess game he’s playing with China.
It’s ridicurous!
I’m not taking any advice from some broad from New Jersey!!!
Talk about mission creep. The lowly humble destroyer is tasked with just about everything.
Excellent point.
I remember .
We could design a missile to take out a ballistic missile in boost phase and then return home to be re-used.
Just a small round fired from an interceptor would destroy a fragile ballistic missile....it’s a huge tank of volatile fuel.
A very high speed rocket drone with retractable wings and a gun...and a small turbofan for the return trip. They developed small turbofans for the jetpacks that never caught on.
I should say that no defense will be 100% and our enemies need to know what will come to them in response to any attack.
Did a good job ruining the Soviet economy ...
Slow-motion launch of SM-6 from the USS John Paul Jones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=42&v=ULiRGxCdLps
During WWWII we built warships of 7400 tons, tasked them with doing almost anything, and called them “light cruisers”.
Today, we build warships of 9600 tons, task them with doing almost anything, and call them “destroyers”.
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