Launch Abort

An intercept test of the Arrow Weapon System last night was aborted when it encountered problems while still on the ground, according to a Missile Defense Agency statement:

The target missile was dropped from a C-17 aircraft and represented a future ballistic missile threat. The radar detected the target and transferred its tracks to the battle management control center. The AWS and the BMDS elements exchanged data in real-time on the target. Not all test conditions to launch the Arrow Interceptor were met, and it was not launched. Interoperability objectives, including a simulated intercept by the Aegis destroyer, USS Benfold (DDG 65), were achieved. Results are being analyzed by the program engineers.

While the MDA statement said only that the test took place "at a missile test range in the United States," The Associated Press reported that it took place off the California coast.

When asked what those test conditions were, an MDA spokesman told Inside Missile Defense in a short e-mail that those conditions were "still under review. Nothing more to add now."

According to MDA's statement:

The test also exercised the Arrow Weapon System interoperability with other elements of the U. S. Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), including the Terminal High Altitude Area (THAAD) Program, the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Program and the Patriot (PAC-3) Program.

At a breakfast with reporters last month, MDA Director and Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly offered a brief preview of the intercept test:

Part of that test will be to test against a missile that is in the range of over 1000 kilometers. One reason they're in the Pacific is, they're limited to the range of missiles that can test in the Eastern Mediterranean; there is a safety issue regarded there, so that's the primary purpose of them coming to the United States to use our test range. . . .

This upcoming test though, it also provides us the opportunity to have the Patriot System, the THAAD system and the Aegis system, all interacting with the Arrow system so we are demonstrating full interoperability as we execute this test. The systems as we were referring to them before, when they work together, they provide sensor data earlier and it's a very, very good test of our coalition architecture that we could deploy in that part of the world that would provide very powerful missile defense.