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US Postpones TMD Test
The US military on Wednesday postponed an attempt to shoot down a rocket over New Mexico in a theater missile defense test because of a problem with test safety equipment, the Defense Department said.
The Army had been scheduled to try for a fourth straight successful intercept of a target with its advanced Patriot PAC-3 missile on Wednesday morning. But the test at White Sands Missile Test Range in New Mexico was postponed because of the problem, according to defense officials.
Pam Rogers, a spokeswoman for the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala., said the test might be rescheduled later in the week.
Rogers stressed that Wednesday's problem was not in the PAC-3 system, being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp., but in a piece of safety equipment on the PAC-3 launcher designed to respond to simulated launches.
The PAC-3, an improved version of the Patriots used against Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War, tracked and collided with Hera target rockets three times in a row at White Sands Missile Test Range in New Mexico prior to Wednesday's delay.
Unlike a planned US national missile defense effort to protect the whole country from long-range attack, the theater program is designed to protect US troops and bases from short- and medium-range "theater" missiles.
Boeing Co. makes the PAC-3's "seeker", which guides it to a target, and Raytheon Co. provides integration for components of the system.
The Army and the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization conducted successful intercepts by the PAC-3 in March and September of last year and again last February. More than a dozen more tests of the upgraded Patriot are planned.
In a key step for US theater missile defense last month, the Pentagon awarded a $3.97 billion contract to Lockheed Martin to begin final development of the ˇ°THAADˇ± theater anti-missile system. That development is expected to last up to seven years.
The announcement followed two back-to-back successful tests of the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) at White Sands last year in which projectiles fired from the range hit dummy attacking missiles at the very edge of space.
At the same time that PAC-3 and THAAD are being developed as part of a theater missile defense, the Pentagon and aerospace firms are conducting research on weapons that could result in a limited National Missile Defense (NMD) to protect US cities from future attack from ``rogue'' states.
China and Russia are bitterly opposed to NMD, and critics of the plan say that a recent test failure high over the Pacific Ocean -- the second miss in three tries -- proves the system cannot work.
President Clinton, under pressure from both supporters and critics of NMD, plans to make a decision later this year on whether or not to begin building an advanced radar for the proposed system on wind-swept Shemya Island in Alaska next year.
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