US ABM test failure mars $1bn N. Korea defense plan

Vandenberg Air Force Base, California (Reuters / Gene Blevins)RT News

A $214-million test launch of the only US defense against long-range ballistic missile attacks failed to hit its target over the Pacific Ocean, according to the Missile Defense Agency. There have been no successful interceptor tests since 2008.

In Friday’s test, a ground-based interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and was expected to hit its target – a missile launched 4,000 miles away from the Kwajalein Atoll.  

It’s the third consecutive failure involving the interceptor system managed by Boeing Co.

The military has tested the so-called ground-based midcourse defense system sixteen times. It has succeeded eight times, with the last intercept in December 2008.

The recent failure comes several months after the Pentagon announced plans to spend $1 billion to add 14 new interceptors along the West Coast in response to threats from North Korea.

The US currently has 26 interceptors deployed at Fort Greely in Alaska and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, in California. Earlier this year the Obama administration said the number of ground-based interceptors would reach 44 by 2017.

“An intercept was not achieved,” the Defense Department said in a statement, adding that program officials will conduct an “extensive review” to determine the cause of “any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept”.

http://rt.com/usa/us-missile-interceptor-fails-737/

16 thoughts on “US ABM test failure mars $1bn N. Korea defense plan

  1. And the whole of the west is going to be coerced into buying this junk?

    Meanwhile, Russia and China with their less fancy but 100% reliable delivery systems give thanks to the deities for another silver salver, 1000% platinum plated gift.

  2. I get the distinct impression that this ‘test’ was nothing more —or less— than a ‘come on’ for one or another enemy of the U.S. to take-up the challenge.

    Other than that, this could well also be the lead-up to a false flag op, where the U.S. shoots a missile at themselves, allows it to wreak damage, and then proclaim what has been planned all along.

    1. I was watching some of the snatches of stuff about the Russo-Chinese exercises and on one warship, the Chinese were testing their “wall of steel” anti-missile guns and hitting their incoming targets every time, this is very alike the “Iron Dome” thing or its American naval equivalent its based on but unlike the Iron Dome, the Chinese and Russian hardware is reliable and effective.

  3. I wonder whos the engineers that designing those missels that fail..You see Boeing use Russian engineers for all there work know..

    1. Our goverment has farmed out all our work here..So whos doing this work ..Not American engineers why I know I was one of thousands they let go and they hired Russian engineers do the work now..I was a 30 years engineer for that company was given no other choice but too leave ..

    2. Oh yes, bite the rawhide strip, bend over the sofa and take it like a man for Israel…

      What’s not so funny is Israel is probably eagerly awaiting this so they can break it down, reverse engineer it, sell to the highest bidder who can then develop jamming and all sorts of counter measures that will leave the US wide open

  4. Russia has been upgrading their existing missiles and the new Bulova missiles to evade and use advanced counter measures to easily avoid being shot down. From what they say, there is no chance these primitive interceptors could possibly hit their missiles and I tend to believe that.

    True, the US might be sending out propaganda to make enemies think they could hit the US and goad them into firing, but frankly, no country out there is interesting in using nuclear weapons and anyone suggesting a country is itching to fire one off at someone else is just trying to hype up fear and probably trying to sell you on an invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction, or whoever the latest enemy is. It is hard to keep track, there are so many.

    In the 80’s, my father was working for a defense contractor as the head of the Space Systems Communications Division, building comm satellites, some military, some civilian. The military had contracted them to build a global communications system capable of surviving a nuclear attack and each satellite had to survive a “near miss” of 100 meters. I asked him lots of questions and one answer I got, was that it was impossible to test such a system in reality as nobody is going to allow you to fire off 2,500 missiles just to simulate a real nuclear war.

    I also asked about offense and defensive weapons being placed on these satellites, which I think would have violated the ABM treaty with Russia the time, and this was the day of Reagan’s Star Wars defense initiative… Anyway, dad could not answer my questions because of national security or whatever… except he is my dad, so any answer is the answer. So even when he wasn’t answering, he answered. So even in the 80’s, they were mounting offensive and defensive weapons systems on satellites and he knew two things… You can’t legitimately test them except against single targets which is silly, and you will never be confident they will work when the time comes. But he knew defense contractors will promise the moon if you give them enough money.

  5. What a previous comment alluded to is also my thinking. That this failed test may have been done in order to fake weapon issues. I feel that they have weapons no one has even seen or heard about yet. Think along the lines of what brought down the towers on 9/11 for example. See Dr. Judy Wood’s website to see what I mean. Peace.

    1. Wasn’t she talking scalar weapons?

      Micro-nukes brought those towers down.

      Disintegrated them, actually.

      1. I will think that Dr. Judy Wood’s comments should be taken with a very large bag of rock salt, if only that the dust from the pulverised buildings was laden with nano thermate.

        If Wood is to be believed, then are we to presume that her ‘scaler weapons’ were able to produce nano thermate from concrete and steel?

        Just a thought.

        1. A scalar weapon would not have caused the dust from the towers to be radioactive.

          The thermite/thermate was used before the micro-nukes were set off.

      2. My thinking (yes, this gets me in trouble) is that at least 3 types of WMDs were used in the 9/11 atrocity – nanothermite, micronukes, and a scalar space weapon (courtesy of Ronnie Raygun’s Starwars Defense Initiative) that caused molecular disintegration; that way, it keeps the masses (that THEY [the hierarchy enslaving you] call cattle) endlessly arguing with each other. There is evidence for at least 3 types of WMDs.

  6. As in promote to the Russians that the ABM is terrible luring them maybe into a false sense of security in the hope the Russians become complacent in that area?

    I know the Russians are getting a bit annoyed their satellite launcher rockets keep blowing up but you notice they only seem to do so when carrying non US contracted payloads but the word on the street on that one is its not the US behind it but a far more Middle Eastern nation that likes to poke wasp nests for America.

    1. Actually a “word on the street” is that cyber attacks and particle beam weapons are especially popular ones to use in these cases. Most recent Proton-M failure was unofficially a cyber attack, while the Phobos-Grunt failure of upper stage was a particle beam weapon employment. But thats not to say that Russians could not do the same to Americans. In fact the last mission of Columbia was very inconvenient for Russia and so it met its end.

  7. A technician said a few years back all you need to do is send over a wave of smaller sacrificial missiles to activate the missile defenses, then immediately after that when their defense system is empty and before it can be reloaded you send over the big ones while there’s nothing available to stop them.

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