The test replicated the technology North Korea might be using three years from now based on U. S. intelligence estimates, and it cleared the…
The successful interception of a dummy ICBM this week is more evidence the U. S. will outpace North Korean missile technology through 2020, Vice Adm. Jim Syring, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, said Wednesday.
The test replicated the technology North Korea might be using three years from now based on U. S. intelligence estimates, and it cleared the way the next more complicated test of the Ground-base Midcourse Defense (GMD) system next year, said Syring, who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on the Tuesday intercept over the Pacific Ocean.
“What we see in 2020… was very well replicated in the test that we conducted yesterday, ” Syring said. “I was confident before the test that we have the capability to defeat any threat that they would throw at us and I’m even more confident today after seeing the intercept test yesterday that we continue to be on that course.”
A redesigned GMD kill vehicle scored the first direct hit of a dummy ICBM thousands of miles from the U. S. coast and northeast of Hawaii.
“We have indications it was a direct hit, a complete obliteration, but we will analyze the lethality data over the next 30 days and literally we’ve got to get down to determining within which centimeter on the RV did it hit, ” Syring said.
The successful test, long in the planning, was cited as a key milestone in missile defense as North Korea barrels toward development of a nuclear-tipped ICBM capable of hitting U.
