Missile Defense Works

The USS Lake Erie, armed with an SM-3 missile designed to knock down incoming missiles-not orbiting satellites-launched the attack at 10:26 p.m. EST, according to the Pentagon. It hit the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in polar orbit at more than 17,000 mph. Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said. “Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days,” it said. The use of the Navy missile amounted to an unprecedented use of components of the Pentagon’s missile defense system, designed to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles in flight-not kill satellites. The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates-not a military commander-was to make the final decision to pull the trigger.

This is a major success for the Missile Defense Agency, the successor to Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, and it’s going to be a tough pill for the program’s critics to swallow. There have been two recent, successful tests of the missile defense system. In September 2007, the agency killed a dummy missile over the Pacific using one of its Ground Based Interceptors stationed in Alaska. General Renuart used the occasion to declare “that we have all of the pieces in place that, if the nation needed to, we could respond.” There are up to 24 interceptors already deployed. And then in December the Japanese Navy knocked down a medium-range missile using the same, American SM-3 missile that was used in yesterday’s strike. Despite this good run, critics have effectively diminished the achievement by charging that the tests were rigged. This time was different. The administration bet big, and if the operation had failed, the program would have suffered a major, and possibly fatal, setback. Instead the bet paid off. It is the greatest PR boost the program could have gotten short of actually striking down a North Korean missile inbound to Hollywood. The system will now be an easier sell to allies, and it should be a cudgel for Republicans in the fall. The “rogue” satellite cost more than a billion dollars. One suspects its destruction will be of greater value to this country than any mission it could have performed as a functioning spy satellite. Check out the Danger Room for complete coverage of the operation. They’ve been all over it.

Missile Defense Works

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