A target missile, a Standard Missile-45, was launched from a Hawaiian facility in late October, just after Donald Trump pledged that Washington would increase its nuclear potential until the rest “come to their senses” and pull out of the historic Cold War treaty signed with the then Soviet Union.
US Missile Defense Agency has released photo and video footage which reveals that the Pentagon had successfully tested a missile interceptor, Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA, operating against a target intermediate-range missile, which was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii on October 26.
The US Navy's guided-missile destroyer USS John Finn (DDG-113) managed to detect and track the target missile during Flight Test Standard Missile-45 by means of its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar using the Aegis Baseline 9.C2 weapon system, the MDA said in a statement issued that same day. The intermediate-range target itself appears, meanwhile, to contradict the INF treaty, which, at that point of time, the US hadn't yet formally withdrawn from, but had merely voiced plans to.
“This was a superb accomplishment and key milestone for the SM-3 Block IIA return to flight,” commented MDA Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves on the mission, jointly completed with Japan, the country's “cooperative development partner.” “My congratulations to the entire team, including our sailors, industry partners,…
