Security

Missile-Stopper Scores

After a long, uneven history, the military’s late-stage missile-stopper is starting to shape up. The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) scored a direct hit, in its latest test over the Pacific — the third interception in four tries for the revamped system. Not only that, but it connected at an altitude "15 miles lower" than […]

Ftt_07caves
After a long, uneven history, the military's late-stage missile-stopper is starting to shape up. The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) scored a direct hit, in its latest test over the Pacific -- the third interception in four tries for the revamped system.

Not only that, but it connected at an altitude "15 miles lower" than any previous THAAD trial, Aviation Week notes. Which is a big deal, because "the lower they are the more challenging they are." And the test was kind of a surprise, too.

A new wrinkle this time around was the fact that the soldiers weren't told precisely when the test was going to occur, according to Tom
McGrath, Lockheed Martin's THAAD program manager. They were instead given a window of several hours. "It was very, very realistic for them, as if it was an actual operation in a war," McGrath told The DAILY.
"They performed flawlessly."

Now, questions are turning to when THAAD might be able to deploy. Previously scheduled for 2012, some in the military are trying to push that up to as early as 2009. But, according to missile guru Victoria Samson, those efforts have been undermined by a flight test scheduled that has pushed some tests as much as a year back.