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US to Launch Debut Test of Space-based Interceptor
The United States will launch the first-ever test of a space-based interceptor by 2005-06, a senior defense official said Tuesday.
Space-based weaponry is a long-range possibility rather than the Pentagon's first priority for missile defense, said Robert Snyder, executive director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which manages the Pentagon missile defense research. Details of the test are not yet worked out, he said.
The experiment would be designed to prove the concept of striking a ballistic missile early in its flight with a projectile launched from space, Snyder told an Army-sponsored briefing on missile defense in Huntsville, Alabama.
Snyder said that the projectile would be launched into space by a rocket and then released to chase down its target.
Space-based missile defense test is first pursued in the 1980s as part of former president Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, which aimed to create an impenetrable shield against attacks on the United States by thousands of Soviet missiles. It was shelved in the early 1990s.
Snyder disclosed that the administration of President George W. Bush is also pressing ahead with research on a space-based laser, hoping to provide a capability to destroy a hostile missile during the boost phase of its flight. The first laser test in space is scheduled for 2012.
The administration is currently focusing most of its missile defense efforts on anti-missile weapons based on land, at sea and in the air.
The pentagon held a successful missile defense test Saturday. A Minuteman 2 intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was struck 150 miles above the central Pacific by an interceptor missile launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific 4,800 miles (7,680 kilometers) away.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that Saturday's missile defense test was only one of 20 such tests planned over the coming five years as the Pentagon tries to develop the missile defense system.
Rumsfeld said the administration is determined to develop technologies for intercepting ballistic missiles of various ranges and in various stages of flight.
Bush's missile defense system has met strong opposition from the international community. Experts say it would destroy the global strategic balance and trigger a new round of arms race.
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