Radar ships in isles after anti-missile test

Two distinctive missile telemetry ships are in Hono­lulu Harbor after participating in a first-of-its-kind test intercept of an intercontinental ballistic missile target high over the Pacific on May 30.

The Pacific Tracker and Pacific Collector — with their 24-foot domed antennas — provided tracking and telemetry support for the successful test that saw a ground-based missile fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California intercept in space a “threat representative” ICBM target northeast of Hawaii that was launched from Kwajalein Atoll, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said.

The agency said the intercept occurred thousands of miles off the West Coast, but didn’t want to be more specific. The Hawaii-based Sea-Based X-Band Radar, positioned far out in the Pacific, also acquired and tracked the target during the $244 million test.

“I was confident before the test that we had the capability to defeat any threat that (North Korea or Iran) would throw at us,” Navy Vice Adm. James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said May 31. “And I’m even more confident today, after seeing the intercept test (on May 30), that we continue to be on that course.”

It was the first live-fire missile test against an ICBM-class target for what’s known as Ground-based Midcourse Defense — the system intended to protect Hawaii and the mainland in the event of a North Korean ICBM attack.

The 666-foot Pacific Tracker and 393-foot Pacific Collector, owned by the U.S. Department of Trans­portation’s Maritime Administration, have long-range, high-data-rate telemetry, processing and data transmissions systems. Additionally, the Pacific Tracker has an XTR-1 dual X- and S-band instrumentation radar.

The test, designated FTG-15, was intended to evaluate the upgraded “Configuration 2” booster and “Capability Enhancement-II Block 1” exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, which smashes into a warhead to disable it. Syring said the test replicated an “operational scenario” with warhead decoys.

Ballistic missile defense “is an incredible challenge” involving “intercepting a missile that can travel thousands of miles per hour with another missile traveling just as fast outside the earth’s atmosphere in this case — hitting a bullet with a bullet,” Syring said. He added that the test “did demonstrate that the system continues to improve and mature.”

The U.S. Government Accountability Office said last month that the Missile Defense Agency has received about $123 billion in funding since 2002 for ballistic missile defense and plans to spend an additional $37 billion through fiscal 2021 on evolving systems.

Syring said the next test of the ground-based system will be in the fall of next year and involve one target and two interceptors fired at it.