MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) – The United States has successfully conducted a flight test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system over the Pacific Ocean, the US Missile Defense Agency has said in a statement.
"One short-range ballistic missile target was intercepted by a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB guided missile, while two low-flying cruise missile targets were engaged by Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) Block IIIA guided missiles near-simultaneously," the statement, released Thursday, said.
According to the statement, the targets were launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on Kauai, Hawaii.
"Following the target launches, the USS John Paul Jones, in Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Radar Priority Mode, detected and tracked the missiles with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar," the statement said, adding that program officials will now "evaluate system performance based upon telemetry and other data obtained during the test".
The test was conducted by the US Missile Defense Agency, the US Pacific Command and US Navy sailors aboard the USS John Paul Jones at around 12:03 p.m. local time (22:03 GMT) on Thursday, November 6.
