The Missile Defense Agency reports on a successful test today:
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced today it has completed an important exercise and flight test involving a successful intercept by a ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack. The flight test results will help to further improve and refine the performance of numerous Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) elements able to provide a defense against the type of long-range ballistic missile that could be used to attack an American city with a weapon of mass destruction. The interceptor was launched from the Ronald W. Reagan Missile Defense Site, located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. For this exercise, a threat-representative target missile was launched from Kodiak, Alaska.
Reuters notes that the “threat-representative target” was intended to simulate an incoming North Korean missile:
A U.S. interceptor missile on Friday shot down a dummy warhead replicating an incoming North Korean missile in the 7th successful test of Boeing Co’s long-range missile shield, a witness told Reuters. “We got it,” said Riki Ellison, president of the private Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. “It was a success.”
