Missile Defense System Matures With 23rd Successful Intercept

The US Ballistic Missile Defense system had another successful test this week, with a next-generation Standard Missile-3 Block IB fired from the missile cruiser USS Lake Erie destroying a complex, separating short-range ballistic missile target with a sophisticated separating mock warhead.

Despite stressing conditions designed to challenge the missile's discrimination capabilities, the SM-3 successfully engaged the target using the sheer kinetic force of a massive collision in space. The test with the new version IB of the SM-3 intercept vehicle, made by Raytheon, maker of the widely used Patriot system, marks the 23rd successful intercept for the SM-3 program according to the company.

The missile defense system, consisting of a multitude of programs, involving all the major conglomerates of the US military-industrial complex that proudly and profitably take part in the endeavour, and costing several hundred billion dollars is a foster child of said complex and shiny example of awesome military high-tech. While it will most probably and hopefully never be used on Earth, it could maybe one day in the future still be useful to intercept rogue asteroids similar to infamous 2012 DA14 who just barely missed our planet in February, or even much smaller comets, like the one that suddenly exploded over Russia the very same day, destroying windows and even a large factory.

"Previous tests of the Raytheon SM-3 Block IB proved the weapon against a unitary target and a separating target with a complex debris scene," said Mitch Stevison, Raytheon Missile Systems' SM-3 program director. "This flight test continues to prove the robustness of the missile's discrimination capabilities against threats that are representative of what we'd see in wartime conditions."

The SM-3 IA is a defensive weapon currently deployed by the U.S. and Japan to destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles.