Non-Subscriber ExtractJapan advances BMD project with SM-3 interception |
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By Nick Brown
30 October 2009
A Japanese ship reversed the Maritime Self-Defense Force's (JMSDF's) last ballistic missile defence (BMD) setback with a successful exo-atmospheric Standard Missile (SM-3) interception of a ballistic missile target on 28 October.
The Kongou-class destroyer JS Myoukou's interception of the separating ballistic target with a new SM-3 Block IA missile roughly 100 miles above the Pacific Missile Range Facility came just under a year after a failed interception from JS Choukai on 20 November 2008. That firing followed a failed US interception in October that was blamed on a life-expired missile, but despite Raytheon, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the JMSDF launching an investigation into the Japanese failure the results have never been made public.
This latest interception, known as Japan Flight Test Mission 3 (JFTM 3), also involved the US Navy's BMD-upgraded Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Paul Hamilton (which tracked the target and ran a simulated engagement) and the BMD trials ship USS Lake Erie . The latter was steaming with the new BMD 4.0.1 Aegis baseline, which incorporates Lockheed Martin's BMD Signals Processor to offer greater target discrimination granularity and proved capable of tracking not just the missile but also the debris after the hit-to-kill intercept.