>> Pentagon: Missile Test a Success
By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Sunday, July 15, 2001; 10:23 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON –– In a boost for President Bush's hopes to build a
defense against ballistic missile attack, the Pentagon scored a hit Saturday
with an interceptor that soared into space from a tiny Pacific isle and
destroyed its target, a mock nuclear warhead.
It was the first test of the "hit-to-kill" technology the administration hopes
will become a key element of a missile defense network. Of three previous
tests in 1999 and 2000, two failed and one succeeded.
"The early indication we have is that everything worked," Air Force Lt.
Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's missile defense programs,
told a news conference less than an hour after the intercept.
He said it would take many weeks to analyze all the test data, but initial
indications were that "we hit pretty accurately." He said the successful test
would not alter the Defense Department's plans to continue testing the
technology.
Kadish said the next test, scheduled for October, might include some
additional complexities such as adding more decoys, which in an actual
attack would be used to attempt to fool the missile interceptor.
At 11:09 p.m. EDT, exactly the scheduled moment of collision between
the interceptor and the warhead, an enormous white flash appeared at the
planned impact point 144 miles above the earth's surface.
Military officials said minutes later that their tracking data showed a direct
hit.
Reporters monitoring the test from a video-teleconference room in the
Pentagon could see the white flash. The video then switched to the mission
control room on Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific, where military and civilians
officials who were running the test broke into a loud cheer, clapped hands
and punched fists into the air.
The interceptor missile was launched from Kwajalein 21 minutes after its
target, a modified Minuteman II intercontinental-range missile equipped
with a mock warhead, roared toward the heavens from a launch pad
4,800 miles away at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
Navigating by the stars and by information transmitted from a ground
station on Kwajalein, the interceptor's weapon, known as a "kill vehicle,"
rammed the mock warhead. The force of impact obliterated the warhead,
thus the term "hit-to-kill," as distinct from other approaches such as
detonating an explosive in the flight path of the target.
The "kill vehicle," a 120-pound device with its own propulsion,
communications, infrared seeker and guidance and control systems,
separated from the rocket booster as planned and reached the planned
impact point in space about eight minutes after the launch from Kwajalein.
The Coast Guard and Air Force arrested four Greenpeace environmental
activists after they swam to shore from an inflatable raft moored off the
central California coast, said Air Force Sgt. Rebecca Bonilla. The arrests
delayed the launch by two minutes, she said.
The swimmers were among a small group of Greenpeace who tried
unsuccessfully to stop the launch, said Carol Gregory, a spokeswoman for
the group.
Less was riding on the outcome of Saturday's test than a year ago, when a
failed intercept sealed President Clinton's decision to put off initial steps
toward deploying a national missile defense.
Bush has made clear he would proceed with an accelerated testing
program regardless of the outcome Saturday.
The successful intercept provides a political boost for a project that some
congressional Democrats believe risks upsetting relations with Russia and
China, and has the potential to create a new arms race.
Failure would not have derailed the effort. It was just the first in a series of
tests the administration hopes will produce at least a rudimentary defense
against long-range missiles by 2004.
"We expect successes and we expect failures in this high technology that
we're using," Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization, said Friday.
He said Saturday's test would "either give us more confidence in our
approach ... or we're going to learn more from it if we fail because it'll be
an unexpected reason why we fail and we'll go try to fix it."
Bush has asked Congress for $8.3 billion to finance missile defense
research and testing in 2002, a $3 billion increase over this year.
Saturday's test was to cost about $100 million, Kadish said.
The last such missile intercept test, on July 8, 2000, was a stunning failure.
The interceptor launched from Kwajalein but the kill vehicle failed to
separate from its rocket booster. As a result, the kill vehicle never saw the
target.
An October 1999 effort succeeded while a January 2000 test failed.
Kadish said the Pentagon has mapped out a more frequent schedule of
tests, including four to six over the next 18 months.
The expanded testing program, described in detail to Congress by
Pentagon officials for the first time last week, drew strong criticism from
missile defense skeptics at home and abroad.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Friday that if the administration
goes ahead with plans to build underground silos next year at Fort Greely,
Alaska, for missile interceptors, it would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, which bars national missile defenses. That, in turn, could
spark a new arms race, he said.
"If those plans were realized in practice, they would seriously complicate
negotiations and would signify the United States' exit from the ABM
treaty," Ivanov said Friday in Moscow.
The administration wants Russia to agree to amend or replace the treaty
with an arrangement permitting testing and deployment of defenses against
long-range missiles. <<
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