Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon says it plans to use a sea-based missile to shoot down a mock warhead over the Pacific today for the first time since a botched drill last June. The Missile Defence Agency said a "hit-to-kill" missile fired from the U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie on Thursday 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 5 p.m. Britisht time, the agency said. Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the agency, said...

By B.J. REYESASSOCIATED PRESS HONOLULU (AP) - A missile fired from a Navy cruiser missed its airborne target Wednesday in an unsuccessful test of a sea-based missile defense system, the Defense Department said. It was the second consecutive failed missile test over the Pacific after a series of successful strikes in the past 2 1/2 years, and the first failure of a sea-based test. An Aries target missile was launched at 1:15 p.m. from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai and a Standard Missile-3 interceptor was fired from the USS Lake Erie, deployed at an undisclosed location in the...