HONOLULU — A Navy ship intercepted a medium-range missile warhead above the earth’s atmosphere off Hawai‘i in the latest test of the U.S. missile defense program, the military said Thursday. A Japanese navy cruiser, the Kirishima, practiced tracking the target,
HONOLULU — A Navy ship intercepted a medium-range missile warhead above the earth’s atmosphere off Hawai‘i in the latest test of the U.S. missile defense program, the military said Thursday.
A Japanese navy cruiser, the Kirishima, practiced tracking the target, marking the first time one of Tokyo’s ships has participated in a U.S. missile defense test.
The military had initially scheduled the drill for Wednesday but postponed it after a small craft ventured into a zone that had been blocked off for the event.
The agency said the test had been scheduled for months and was not prompted by indications that North Korea was planning to test launch a long-range missile.
In Thursday’s test, the USS Shiloh detected a medium-range target after it was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kaua‘i, then fired a Standard Missile-3 interceptor.
The interceptor shot down the target warhead after it separated from its rocket booster, more than 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and 250 miles northwest of Kaua‘i, the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement.
The test marked the seventh time in eight attempts the military has successfully shot down a missile target with an interceptor fired from a ship.
It also was the second attempt by a ship to shoot down a separating target. The first came in November when the USS Lake Erie successfully shot down a multistage target in another test.
The achievement is considered significant because medium- and long-range ballistic missiles typically have at least two stages.
Intercepting such missiles after they separate is difficult because sensors must be able to distinguish between the body of the missile and the warhead.
In addition to the Japanese cruiser, the USS Lake Erie monitored the test to collect data the military plans to use to develop a new radar signal processor.
Two destroyers, the USS Milius and the USS Paul Hamilton, were also on hand for the drill.
Japan agreed to jointly develop missile defense technology with the United States late last year, broadening an earlier bilateral research pact.
In March, Japan and the United States tested a Japanese-designed clamshell nose cone that had been mounted on a U.S.-created SM-3 missile. The nose cone opened as expected during that test, which was also conducted off Hawai‘i.
Tokyo became interested in acquiring and developing missile defense technology after the last North Korean ballistic missile defense test, in 1998, when Pyongyang fired a missile over Japan’s main island.
