ChineseTiger1986
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WASHINGTON A test launching of an advanced missile-defense interceptor failed to hit its target high over the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon said on Friday, four months after the Obama administration announced that it would spend $1 billion to increase the number of interceptors along the West Coast in response to verbal threats from North Korea.
A brief Defense Department statement issued Friday said a long-range ballistic missile target had been launched from an Army test range in the Marshall Islands, and that an interceptor had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to destroy it.
An intercept was not achieved, the statement said. Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept.
Some skeptics of the missile-defense program saw the failure as additional evidence that the technology was unreliable and might not be worth the expense.
Philip E. Coyle III, who once ran the Pentagons weapons-testing program and is with the Center for Arms Control, said in a statement that the system is something the U.S. military, and the American people, cannot depend upon.
Mr. Coyle said there had been no successful tests of the ground-based, midcourse missile-defense system, like the one launched Friday, in five years. Pentagon officials acknowledge that the interceptors had a mixed record, hitting dummy targets just 50 percent of the time.
In March, as tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula, the administration announced that it would increase ground-based interceptors in California and Alaska to 44 from 30 by 2017.
All 14 of the new interceptors are to be placed in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, where there are already 26 interceptors. Four others are at Vandenberg.
The increase in interceptors was intended not merely to present a credible deterrent to North Koreas limited intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal, but also to show South Korea and Japan that the United States was willing to commit resources to deterring the North. At the same time, American officials warned China that it must restrain its ally or face an expanding American military focus on Asia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/us/missile-defense-interceptor-misses-target-in-test.html?_r=0
A brief Defense Department statement issued Friday said a long-range ballistic missile target had been launched from an Army test range in the Marshall Islands, and that an interceptor had been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to destroy it.
An intercept was not achieved, the statement said. Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept.
Some skeptics of the missile-defense program saw the failure as additional evidence that the technology was unreliable and might not be worth the expense.
Philip E. Coyle III, who once ran the Pentagons weapons-testing program and is with the Center for Arms Control, said in a statement that the system is something the U.S. military, and the American people, cannot depend upon.
Mr. Coyle said there had been no successful tests of the ground-based, midcourse missile-defense system, like the one launched Friday, in five years. Pentagon officials acknowledge that the interceptors had a mixed record, hitting dummy targets just 50 percent of the time.
In March, as tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula, the administration announced that it would increase ground-based interceptors in California and Alaska to 44 from 30 by 2017.
All 14 of the new interceptors are to be placed in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, where there are already 26 interceptors. Four others are at Vandenberg.
The increase in interceptors was intended not merely to present a credible deterrent to North Koreas limited intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal, but also to show South Korea and Japan that the United States was willing to commit resources to deterring the North. At the same time, American officials warned China that it must restrain its ally or face an expanding American military focus on Asia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/us/missile-defense-interceptor-misses-target-in-test.html?_r=0
