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US Missile Interceptor Hits Target: Pentagon
The United States successfully conducted its fourth test of a planned national missile defense (NMD) system on Saturday, the Pentagon said.
This was the first test of the controversial multibillion-U.S.- dollar ballistic missile defense for the administration of President George W. Bush.
The 100-million-dollar test involved a Minuteman 2 inter- continental ballistic missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and an interceptor fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, 7,725 kilometers away.
The U.S. Defense Department said the target was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 10:40 p.m. EDT. Twenty- one minutes and 34 seconds later, a ground-based interceptor lifted off from Kwajalein Atoll, it said.
The target was destroyed some 225 kilometers above the central Pacific, outside the earth's atmosphere, by the 55-kilogram "kill vehicle."
Prior to the fourth test, two of three tests have failed to prove the system would work, most recently on July 8 last year when an attempt to intercept and destroy a dummy warhead in space failed because the weapon did not separate from the second stage of its liftoff rocket.
Bush has asked the Congress for 8.3 billion dollars to finance the missile defense research and testing in 2002, a 3-billion- dollar increase over 2001.
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