The United States successfully carried out a flight test of a new-generation ballistic missile defense interceptor on Wednesday, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said.
The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system, launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, located on Kauai, Hawaii, intercepted a separating ballistic missile target over the Pacific Ocean by the Navy’s newest missile defense interceptor missile, the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB.
The USS Lake Erie detected and tracked the missile with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar and launched the SM-3 Block IB interceptor.
“The kinetic warhead acquired the target, diverted into its path, and, using only the force of a direct impact, engaged and destroyed the threat in a hit-to-kill intercept,” the MDA said.
The first successful SM-3 Block IB intercept occurred on May 9, 2012.
Aegis BMD is the sea-based midcourse component of the MDA's Ballistic Missile Defense System and is designed to intercept and destroy short to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats.
The interceptor is an essential component of an anti-missile system the United States is building in and around Europe and is to be deployed in Romania by 2015.
