On Sunday June 22, high over the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing, the Joint Functional Component Command, Integrated Missile Defense, U.S. Northern Command and the U.S. Navy successfully tested the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element of the nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) crashing a kill vehicle at nearly 15,000 kilometers an hour into a test warhead, while simultaneously performing discrimination tasks flawlessly.
The interceptor was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and intercepted a ballistic missile target launched from the U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
This means that for the 65th time since 2001, the US missile defense system successfully demonstrated “hit to kill” technology often described as hitting a “bullet with a bullet”.
According to a top missile defense expert in the House,
“The test clearly demonstrated the advancements made with the integrated missile defense system to detect, discriminate, and disintegrate the potential missile threats being development by countries such as North Korea and Iran.”
The professional staffer further noted:
“Watching the robust, multilayer sensor net control the engagement was proof the system is well on the way to achieving full military capability. Finally, the most impressive event was the performance of the second-generation kill vehicle to operate in a very complex environment and home-in flawlessly on the target.”
The success many believe will now bolster our current missile defenses in Alaska and California to counter current and potential nuclear-armed long range rocket arsenals in North Korea and Iran and give further support to the purchase of 14 additional rockets designed to also stop an accidental, deliberate or unauthorized launch (of a limited nature) from China or Russia.
The cost to do so over 5 years would be $1 billion, or about what the US government spends in 2 hours. To date, the Congressional committees have approved these funds which would increase our national missile defense interceptors from 30 to 44, a nearly 50% increase in capability.