The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, in a joint test with Japan, failed overnight to hit a missile fired from Hawaii with a “new, developmental” intercept missile.
The agency said a medium-range ballistic target missile was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii. After being tracked by the USS John Paul Jones destroyer, the ship fired a new SM-3 Block IIA guided missile at the target.
“[B]ut the missile did not intercept the target,” the agency said.
The agency said officials will begin reviewing the data from the failed test, which was the fourth using the new interceptor missile. The last test in February was successful.
Despite that success and others, the agency told Congress in June that the U.S. is “not there yet” on reliability when it comes to intercepting missiles out of the sky.
Referring to possible missiles coming from North Korea, Vice Adm. Jim Syring said the U.S. is “addressing the threat that we know today,” but that the U.S. is not “comfortably ahead of the threat.”
