New defensive missile reportedly misses target off Kauai

The failed test of a new and enhanced-capability defensive missile off Kauai on Wednesday is seen as a temporary setback for its potential to defend Hawaii, Japan and Europe from North Korean and Iranian threats.

The $30 million SM-3 Block IIA missile did not intercept an intermediate-range ballistic missile target in its first-ever launch from Kauai’s Aegis Ashore facility.

The same missile was test-fired from the Pearl Harbor destroyer USS John Paul Jones off Kauai in February and again in June.

Breaking from standard practice, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency did not confirm Wednesday’s failure or any details of the test, reporting only that it took place.

U.S. Pacific Command put out a statement saying: “The Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy sailors manning the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex conducted a live-fire missile flight test using a Standard-Missile (SM)-3 Block IIA missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai.”

The Missile Defense Agency’s unusual handling of the launch comes with high expectations for the missile at a time of extreme tension with North Korea, but with a bit of a thaw in North-South relations ahead of this month’s winter Olympics that may have factored into downplaying the outcome.

The test also involves sensitivity with Japan, which co-developed parts of the SM-3 IIA missile. There’s also an urgency to prove the effectiveness of the missile so it can be deployed to a Poland Aegis Ashore site for the protection of Europe by the end of the year.

Japan is seeking two Aegis Ashore sites. Hawaii could have its own SM-3 IIA interceptors in the future.

Riki Ellison, chairman of the nonprofit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, which seeks a strong missile defense, noted President Donald Trump’s campaign of “maximum pressure” on North Korea to denuclearize.

Aegis Ashore and Navy Aegis ships with ballistic missile shoot-down capability, combined with the SM-3 IIA missile, “is a considerable asset for this pressure,” Ellison said in a release Wednesday. “We need to dig in, fix the issues quickly, and re-test quickly as our country has previously done with its missile systems … under nuclear proliferation of the Soviet Union.”

With the rapid pursuit of nuclear ballistic missiles by North Korea and missile proliferation by Iran, “we have to be fearless of failure and be absolutely resolute to ultimately succeed in testing,” Ellison said.

The SM-3 IIA has been built up to be something of a missile marvel, potentially capable of defending Hawaii against North Korean ICBMs.

The three-stage missile is 21 inches in diameter along its length instead of tapering, providing more space for fuel and resulting in higher speeds and more than triple the range — 1,350 miles — of its current SM-3 1B counterpart.

Denny Roy, an Asia-Pacific security expert at the East-West Center in Honolulu, said if Wednesday’s test was indeed a failed intercept, it’s a setback of sorts for the United States and allies and in particular, Hawaii.

“The SM-3 (missile) has been talked about as a possible better intermediary stopgap sort of measure — instead of relying on the ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, which have to fly thousands of miles farther” to intercept a North Korean missile heading for Hawaii, he said.

But “this isn’t the playoffs where you are out with one loss,” Roy noted. He added that “you learn things by testing and failing.” The conditions under which the test was carried out also have to be considered. Roy said not many details were provided, but it’s possible it was a more realistic and challenging test.

The SM-3 IIA missile now has a record of one intercept in three tries off Kauai.

The USS John Paul Jones, used as a testbed for missile defense, conducted the first intercept of a ballistic missile target with an SM-3 IIA, successfully downing a medium-range target missile west of Kauai on Feb. 3.

A June 21 SM-3 IIA test against a medium-range target did not go as well when a sailor on the John Paul Jones mistakenly pushed a button that caused the Aegis weapon system to break engagement and initiate a message commanding the SM-3 IIA missile to destruct in flight, according to the Pentagon’s Operational Test and Evaluation office.