Bad Weather Delays US Missile Defense Test

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, December 03, 2001

Bad Weather Delays US Missile Defense Test

The Pentagon announced Saturday that a planned missile defense test was postponed for at least 24 hours because of bad weather over Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where a dummy warhead was set to be launched.

The bad weather Saturday night over the base could have made the test unsafe, the Pentagon said in a statement. The test would be conducted Sunday night if the conditions improved, it said.

The test, part of the controversial National Missile Defense (NMD) program, had been originally scheduled for 9:00 p.m. EST (0200 GMT) Saturday and 1:00 am EST (0600 GMT) on Sunday.

During the upcoming test, a mock warhead will be fired from a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base. About 20 minutes later, an interceptor missile will be fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

About 10 minutes later the intercept would take place at an altitude of approximately 140 miles (225 kilometers) above the central Pacific Ocean.

The head of the missile defense program expressed confidence Friday over the coming test, saying past glitches had been fixed after two of the four previous tests failed.

But even if an interceptor failed to destroy the dummy warhead as planned, the test would not be regard as a failure, said Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Many countries have expressed opposition to Washington's plan to build an NMD system, saying it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty signed by the U.S. and former Soviet Union, thus disrupting the foundation for a strategic international stability.

US to Launch Missile Defense Test Saturday