Aiming high: Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense

In March 1994 the US Navy (USN) conducted two experimental firings of Standard Missile Block III ER Terrier missiles, each modified with a third-stage kinetic kill vehicle (KKV), against Aries theatre ballistic missile targets representative of a 'Scud'-type missile.

The first, flight test FTV-3, was performed on 6 March from the Wallops Flight Facility Test Range in Virginia; it was followed on 28 March by FTV-4, launched from the Leahy-class cruiser USS Richmond K Turner. Both shots missed. A problem affecting the missile second stage meant that FTV-3 was unable to deliver the KKV into its required intercept 'basket'; FTV-4 meanwhile got the KKV to within 170 m of its target (against a requirement of 1,400 m) but the KKV failed to transition to internal power because of a battery failure.

Even so, the USN was encouraged, pointing out that the flight tests were more technology experiments than trials of fully developed weapon systems and claiming that the tests had achieved 42 out of their 43 planned objectives, demonstrating critical technologies and proving the feasibility of sea-based theatre ballistic missile defence (BMD).

Fifteen years on, and with several billions of dollars pumped into analysis, simulation and modelling, system engineering and flight testing, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the USN are today deploying a certified sea-based BMD system, leveraging the existing Aegis Weapon System, that has demonstrated its ability to 'hit a bullet, with a bullet' in space, repeatedly and reliably. 244 of 3654 words