|
Intercept Test Kicks Off U.S. Race For Missile Defenses
WASHINGTON, July 14 (News Agencies) - The Pentagon began the countdown for its first attempt to intercept an intercontinental missile with a missile in more than a year Saturday, kicking off a race for missile defenses that promises to fundamentally alter Cold War strategies of nuclear deterrence.
"This is one test in a series of tests. And if it's successful we'll gain confidence. And if it fails, we will learn a lot," said Air Force Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
If all goes well, a modified Minuteman missile will be launched sometime after 7:00 pm (0200 GMT Sunday) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and tracked over the Pacific by a network of satellites and radars.
Minutes later, an interceptor missile will be fired from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, boosting into space a kill vehicle that is designed to seek out and destroy the incoming "warhead."
"What you'll see is a blinding flash of light indicating that we intercepted it," said Kadish.
That's if all goes according to plan. However, two of three previous attempted intercepts have failed, and something as minor as a faulty valve or a software glitch could throw off the whole intricate system.
The last test on July 8 was dashed when the kill vehicle failed to release from its booster rocket. In a test on January 19, 2000, it missed its target when a clogged cooling pipe blinded its infrared seekers seconds before impact.
For Saturday's test to succeed, the kill vehicle must distinguish the simulated warhead from a balloon decoy and steer itself into a collision at a closing speed of 24,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) per hour nearly 240 kilometers (150 miles) over the Earth.
Kadish said the chances of an intercept were slightly better than even but told reporters Friday he was "quietly confident" of success. "The countdown is moving very, very well," he said.
Last summer's test failure, however, convinced then-president Bill Clinton not to proceed with the deployment of a limited national missile defense test.
President George W. Bush's Pentagon has taken a radically different approach, accelerating testing and development of a whole range of missile defense systems in defiance of the 1972 ABM treaty with Russia that kept the nuclear balance through the Cold War.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a press report Saturday Washington would seek a new, comprehensive nuclear weapons agreement with Russia to allow the United States to develop its missile defense program, which has drawn angry protests from Moscow.
"We need an understanding, an agreement, a treaty, something with the Russians that allows us to move forward with our missile defense programs," Powell told the Washington Post.
Under the new scheme, the ground-based system being tested Saturday will be only one component of a layered defense that also would include sea-based, airborne and space-based defenses capable of attack missiles along the entire arc of its trajectory.
While it has no schedule for deploying any of the systems, the Pentagon says the testing programs are designed to provide "interim" missile defense capabilities as early as 2004.
The Pentagon plans to begin pouring concrete for interceptor missile silos in Fort Greely, Alaska as early as next spring as part of a "test bed" that could be used as a missile defense site in an emergency when its completed between 2004 and 2006, Kadish said.
He said the Alaska test bed will enable the Pentagon to conduct more realistic missile defense tests against multiple targets fired from different locations.
The pace of testing will also pick up after Saturday, according to Kadish, who said the Pentagon has scheduled a major missile defense test at a rate of every other month, said Kadish.
|
