Washington, February 02: Problems with a radar system caused a missile defense test to fail, the Missile Defense Agency said Sunday.
At approximately 3:40 p.m., a target missile was successfully launched from the U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. A Ground-Based Interceptor was also launched successfully from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California around six minutes later.
The missile defense interceptor missed its target because a “Sea-Based X-band (SBX) radar did not perform as expected,” the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement.
A SBX radar provides missile tracking information to a Ground Based Midcourse Defense system which can be used to detect and track oncoming missiles, as well as determine if the object is a warhead, a decoy or debris. The success of intercepting an enemy missile relies on the radar’s flawless operation.
The agency plans on further investigating the cause of this failure.
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