A next-generation guided missile with ramifications for the protection of Hawaii successfully intercepted a ballistic missile target Friday west of the Hawaiian Islands in the first such shoot-down attempt, demonstrating a greater defensive capability for the United States and Japan, which jointly developed the missile.
A medium-range ballistic missile target was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, and the Pearl Harbor destroyer USS John Paul Jones detected, tracked and intercepted the target using an SM-3 Block IIA guided missile, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said.
MDA Director Vice Adm. Jim Syring called the test a “critical milestone” in the development of the new SM-3 Block IIA.
“The missile, developed jointly by a Japanese and U.S. government and industry team, is vitally important to both our nations and will ultimately improve our ability to defend against increasing ballistic missile threats around the world,” Syring said in a news release.
The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a Virginia nonprofit that wants a strong U.S. missile defense, said the ballistic missile target was similar in range to both North Korean and Iranian missiles currently deployed.
The bigger SM-3 Block IIA has more than twice the range of the current SM-3 Block IA and IB interceptors deployed on 33 U.S. Aegis ballistic missile defense ships, four Japanese Kongo-class ships and an “Aegis Ashore” site in Romania, a land-based site with the same capability as on ships, the advocacy alliance said.
The new missile has larger rocket motors and a bigger, more capable kinetic warhead capable of engaging threats sooner and able to protect larger regions from short- to medium-range ballistic missile threats, missile maker Raytheon said. The SM-3 Block IIA was flown twice before in tests without target intercepts.
“This capability enables defense of more area with less ships by having earlier shot opportunities due to the increased speed and range of the interceptor, thereby enabling the Navy to defend more area worldwide,” the missile defense group said.
Beyond that, the SM-3 Block IIA is expected to have the ability to intercept some intercontinental ballistic missiles, which have ranges greater than 3,400 miles, said George Lewis, who writes about missile defense at mostlymissiledefense.com. Lewis is with the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University.
ICBMs have higher burnout speeds than shorter-range missiles, and intercepting them requires greater closing speeds and more capable kill vehicles — which the new missile possesses.
“There is little doubt that the Block IIA kill vehicles will be able to home in on and intercept ICBM warheads,” Lewis said in June on his site.
Defense Department consideration of converting an Aegis Ashore missile testing facility on Kauai into an operationally defensive site assumes an SM-3 capability against ICBMs, with the new interceptors possibly to be used not just in Hawaii, but elsewhere, as well, as supplements to ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, Lewis said.
Romania already has an operational Aegis Ashore site using the less capable SM-3 Block IB. Poland will be receiving one in 2018. The Hawaii test success “keeps the (SM-3 Block IIA) program on track for deployment at sea and ashore in the 2018 timeframe,” Raytheon said.
The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance wants the Kauai Aegis Ashore facility to be operational for the defense of Hawaii in times of emergency.
“Hawaii, with its geographic location and its strategic role in projection of U.S. military capability and command (of) the Pacific region, is without doubt the most vulnerable U.S. state of the
50 states,” the advocacy group said. “It is the closest to both North Korea and China in the middle of the Pacific.”
Friday’s test also marked the first time an SM-3 Block IIA was launched from a Navy
Aegis ship, and the first intercept engagement
using the Aegis Baseline 9.C2 integrated system.
