US Missile Defense Test Fails

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 2, 2010 @01:10AM from the bullet-with-a-bullet dept.

KingRobot sends news that a recent test of a US missile defense system has failed. The test of the Groundbased Midcourse Defense interceptor apparently had a problem with the sea-based X-band radar. Both the target missile, launched from the Pacific, and the interceptor, launched from California, performed as expected. "Yesterday's test was intended to quell doubters of the entire missile-defense approach, with the target missile deploying countermeasures. Critics of the GMD programme say that tests thus far, which have not included such spoilers, have been too kind to the intercept tech. The [military] isn't disclosing whether the intercepting kill vehicle had simply failed to reach the 'threat cluster' of warhead(s) and decoys, or whether it had reached the cluster but hit a countermeasure rather than the actual target."

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Forced Upgrades by yellekc · 2010-02-02 01:45 · Score: 5, Funny

This system will still force our adversaries to build more complex rockets and delivery systems. Rocket science is tough even for the Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans. So maybe in their attempt to upgrade their rockets to bypass our barely working defense systems, they will make even more mistakes than we did, and their rockets will fail all on their own. Based on resent missile test from Russia and North Korea it might just work.