US missile defense test fails

[Vikrant]

WASHINGTON: America's missile defense system failed on Friday in a test over the Pacific, with an interceptor failing to hit an incoming ballistic missile, the Pentagon said.

The miss represented yet another setback for the costly ground-based interceptors, which have not had a successful test result since 2008.

The test's objective was to have an interceptor, launched from Vandenberg air base in California, knock out a long-range ballistic missile fired from a US military test site at Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands.

But "an intercept was not achieved," US Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said in a brief statement.

"Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept," it said.

The anti-missile weapon has run into repeated technical problems, with tests delayed after two failures in 2010.

The United States has 30 of the ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, at a cost of about $34 billion. They are supposed to counter the potential threat posed by North Korea, which has tried to develop long-range ballistic missiles.

The Pentagon wants to deploy an additional 14 ground-based interceptors to bases in Alaska, at a cost of about $1 billion, also in response to what Washington deems a growing threat from North Korea.

Some lawmakers also are pushing to open a new missile defense site on the country's East Coast, in case Iran or other adversaries obtain long-range missiles.

Critics of the missile defense program are sure to seize on the test result as further proof that the system faces insurmountable technical hurdles.

US missile defense test fails: Pentagon - The Times of India

 

[Auteur]

One problem with these systems is that in a real situation offensive missiles could deploy large numbers of decoys to confuse defenses, which would have to sort things out in a critically short span of time. If tests are failing under controlled conditions, the real thing would be much more haphazard.

For countries like Iran or N Korea, actual use is extremely unlikely anyway- their real value to them would be an improved bargaining position in various disputes. They want a big stick, even if using it would be crazy.

 

[Vikrant]

I wonder why France, Russia and China were not used to justify the development of ABM measures because these are the countries that possess ICBMs. To the best of my knowledge Iran does not even have IRBMs. N Korea on the other hand may have IRBMs but no ICBMs.

 

[Auteur]

I wonder why France, Russia and China were not used to justify the development of ABM measures because these are the countries that possess ICBMs. To the best of my knowledge Iran does not even have IRBMs. N Korea on the other hand may have IRBMs but no ICBMs.

(France?)

This is because there is no defense from a determined assault by large numbers of missiles, something no one has believed other than Ronald Reagan during his early stages of dementia.

Theoretically, they could work against a one or two rogue actions, or mistakes, but even this is in question.

The real value of nuclear weapons is to enhance one's positon at a negociating table, not in their actual use, which would be armageddon, and to no one's advantage.

 

[Vikrant]

^ That definitely makes sense.

Although some people believe that nuclear weapons just like any other weapons are there to be used and will be used.

 

[Mushroom]

WASHINGTON: America's missile defense system failed on Friday in a test over the Pacific, with an interceptor failing to hit an incoming ballistic missile, the Pentagon said.

OK, first to clear up some terminology. This is not "Ground Based Missile Defense", as there are many forms of "ground based missile defense", not just this one. The system being discussed is currently known as "Ground-Based Midcourse Defense" (or GMD), and previously has been known as Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) and Multi-Phase Missile Defense.

And it did not really "fail to hit the target". What we had here was a failure in the flight system, where you actually had a failure of separation.

Instead, some of the workers’ phones began ringing and a telemetry announcer reported that while data sent from back from the booster included an OK to separate the exoatmospheric kill vehicle the system never indicated that separation had occurred.

Missile defense test fails

And this is still something that every space agency in the world has problems with from time to time. Of the 3 Delta III launches in the late 1990's, all 3 of these were failures. And most other systems still have problems from time to time.

As for Iran and IRBMs, they are on the verge of them. An IRBM is a missile with a range from 3,000-5,000 km, and the newest Ghadr-110 has a range of 3,000 km which places it right on the line between MRBM/IRBM. With even a 5% improvement it is unquestionably an IRBM.

As for the decoys, I will say this simply: Not gonna happen.

Not a single nation has ever seriously pursued designing and producing "Nuclear Missile Decoys" for a very obvious reason: Why?

If you have the capability to make a decoy ICBM, just make a real ICBM. That doubles (or more in the case of MIRV) the chance of hitting your target. The idea of a "decoy ICBM" is about as silly as making a "decoy battleship" or a "decoy long range heavy bomber". If you are going to expend that much in making a decoy, why bother when for a fraction more you get the real deal.

The closest we have had to theoretical decoys is the possibility of decoy reentry vehicles in a MIRV warhead, such as the Russian R-36M which could have 10 warheads (and possibly loading 5 real and 5 decoy vehicles). But since the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system is designed to strike prior to MIRV separation, this would be a pointless defense system.

And since the 1980's when the US and USSR started to drastically reduce their missile stockpiles, the purpose of such defense has shifted away from "Defending against WWIII" and trying to stop a 500 missile barrage to stopping a handfull from a rogue nation.

And this is also not our only ABM system. The US also fields the AEGIS SM-3, PATRIOT PAC-3, and THAAD systems which are all currently deployed.

 

[Auteur]

Decoys do not mean separate missiles, or even warheads necessarily. There are cheap methods of confusing defensive systems. In the vacuum of space, all things tend to travel at the same velocity, and so releasing objects that "look" to radar or other sensors something like a warhead can considerably complicate matters. These could be anything from ballons to crafted metal objects. Transponders can also interfere with radar signals, further muddying the picture for the defense. Waiting until missiles get closer to make a judgement, travelling at 5 miles per second, is clearly living life on the edge.


The basic problem with discrimination is that the characteristics of objects that can be measured with radars and infrared sensors are not unique and can easily be modified. In order to recognize a warhead you not only need to know what it looks like, but it also needs to look uniquely different from other objects that are not warheads. Making matters yet more complicated, a warhead and other objects can and will look different to a radar or infrared sensor due to changes in orientation relative to the sensor. This results in an array of characteristics that do not result in mathematically unique characteristics that can be used to identify each object, but also results in different estimates which objects are warheads and which are not at different times. It is simply ridiculous to turn these facts of physics on their head to claim that discrimination might be possible at some future time."

Decoys and other discontents | David Hoffman

 

[Mushroom]

Decoys do not mean separate missiles, or even warheads necessarily. There are cheap methods of confusing defensive systems. In the vacuum of space, all things tend to travel at the same velocity, and so releasing objects that "look" to radar or other sensors something like a warhead can considerably complicate matters. These could be anything from ballons to crafted metal objects. Transponders can also interfere with radar signals, further muddying the picture for the defense. Waiting until missiles get closer to make a judgement, travelling at 5 miles per second, is clearly living life on the edge.

Ballons? Come on now, ballons?

No, the interceptor is not going to be fooled by ballons, or pieces of metal, or anything else. Here, let me say this once again:

For the same effort it takes to launch a decoy, a nation can launch another ICBM.

There, simple enough to understand now? And a decoy quickly would become obvious, well, because it is a decoy. And ICBM does not just go up into orbit, then fall like it was on a dumb rocket. They make very specific course changes and corrections, enough so that quickly after launch their target is identified (Western US), then quickly recalculated with an increasing degree of accuracy during the flight (California, Southern California, Pasadena). A "crafted metal object" would do none of those. So the RADAR would simply ignore them as they are not a threat.

Oh, and BTW, from 2007-2012 I was a PATRIOT crewman in the Army. So this is something I have been following closely for quite a while now. About half of my class were part of the first THAAD unit.

 

[SteadyMercury]

And it did not really "fail to hit the target". What we had here was a failure in the flight system, where you actually had a failure of separation.

I love your posts in this thread, but you're splitting hairs a bit here aren't you?

If it was launched with the intent of hitting the target and did not, it failed to his the target regardless of whether the reason was blew up in the launcher, failure of separation, or actual terminal phase inaccuracy.

 

[mudwhistle]

WASHINGTON: America's missile defense system failed on Friday in a test over the Pacific, with an interceptor failing to hit an incoming ballistic missile, the Pentagon said.

The miss represented yet another setback for the costly ground-based interceptors, which have not had a successful test result since 2008.

The test's objective was to have an interceptor, launched from Vandenberg air base in California, knock out a long-range ballistic missile fired from a US military test site at Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands.

But "an intercept was not achieved," US Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said in a brief statement.

"Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept," it said.

The anti-missile weapon has run into repeated technical problems, with tests delayed after two failures in 2010.

The United States has 30 of the ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, at a cost of about $34 billion. They are supposed to counter the potential threat posed by North Korea, which has tried to develop long-range ballistic missiles.

The Pentagon wants to deploy an additional 14 ground-based interceptors to bases in Alaska, at a cost of about $1 billion, also in response to what Washington deems a growing threat from North Korea.

Some lawmakers also are pushing to open a new missile defense site on the country's East Coast, in case Iran or other adversaries obtain long-range missiles.

Critics of the missile defense program are sure to seize on the test result as further proof that the system faces insurmountable technical hurdles.

US missile defense test fails: Pentagon - The Times of India

No successful test since 08'??

Who was elected in 08'?

Hummmmmm?

 

[Mushroom]

And it did not really "fail to hit the target". What we had here was a failure in the flight system, where you actually had a failure of separation.

I love your posts in this thread, but you're splitting hairs a bit here aren't you?

If it was launched with the intent of hitting the target and did not, it failed to his the target regardless of whether the reason was blew up in the launcher, failure of separation, or actual terminal phase inaccuracy.

And I never said it was not a failure, it was just a failure in the missile itself, not a "failure to intercept", as if it missed it's target. I wrack this up as a failure in the part of the launching device, not in the system as a whole.

And after over a half century of launching people and devices in space, we still have rockets occasionally explode. It is simply part of the risk.

 

[Auteur]

Decoys do not mean separate missiles, or even warheads necessarily. There are cheap methods of confusing defensive systems. In the vacuum of space, all things tend to travel at the same velocity, and so releasing objects that "look" to radar or other sensors something like a warhead can considerably complicate matters. These could be anything from ballons to crafted metal objects. Transponders can also interfere with radar signals, further muddying the picture for the defense. Waiting until missiles get closer to make a judgement, travelling at 5 miles per second, is clearly living life on the edge.

Ballons? Come on now, ballons?

No, the interceptor is not going to be fooled by ballons, or pieces of metal, or anything else. Here, let me say this once again:

For the same effort it takes to launch a decoy, a nation can launch another ICBM.

There, simple enough to understand now? And a decoy quickly would become obvious, well, because it is a decoy. And ICBM does not just go up into orbit, then fall like it was on a dumb rocket. They make very specific course changes and corrections, enough so that quickly after launch their target is identified (Western US), then quickly recalculated with an increasing degree of accuracy during the flight (California, Southern California, Pasadena). A "crafted metal object" would do none of those. So the RADAR would simply ignore them as they are not a threat.

Oh, and BTW, from 2007-2012 I was a PATRIOT crewman in the Army. So this is something I have been following closely for quite a while now. About half of my class were part of the first THAAD unit.

Missile crewman or not, you are going to have to re-read my post and link if we are going to have any sort of coherent dialogue here. It has all gone over your head.

 

[Mushroom]

Missile crewman or not, you are going to have to re-read my post and link if we are going to have any sort of coherent dialogue here. It has all gone over your head.

I read it, and dismissed it. Because it really is a bunch of moonbeams and fairy dust.

Look, you can believe all you want that somebody can throw a bunch of bricks or pillows or whatever out into space and it will so confuse our RADAR that we could not see the real missiles. And you can dismiss anything that you do not like.

But that does not mean that you are correct. Any missile more sophisticated then a SRBM-MRBM (like a SCUD) relies on multiple corrections during flight. This is especially true for an ICBM. How else do you think they are able to fly half way around the world, and land on a target area the size of a soccer field?

They make multiple corrections during their flight, that is how. Missiles make corrections. The launch themselves up into space, go into a loose orbit, guide themselves towards their target, then change their angle to start their descent. Most make from 3-10+ course corrections during their flight.

And do you really think that a bunch of balloons will fool us or anybody else? Our RADAR systems routinely ignore such returns, because they do not match the behavior of missiles (or aircraft). Otherwise, every time a flock of geese or meteor came within range of a RADAR, everybody would be going crazy. And yes, I have myself jumped when an "inbound missile" alert happened automatically. However, within seconds the inbound speed of 54,000 miles per hour tells us that it is not a missile, but a meteor.

So sorry, but simply insulting me and dismissing everything I have said is not a valid argument, and does not disprove what I have said either.