Defence of Guam: US conducts first ballistic missile intercept amid contest with China
Spokesman says ‘it confirmed our ability to detect, track and engage a target missile in flight, increasing our readiness to defend’
Military officials described the test as a “critical milestone” to “defend against evolving adversary threats”.
The Missile Defence Agency (MDA), a subsidiary of the US defence department, said it had “successfully conducted” the first live intercept of a ballistic missile on Monday.
During the experiment, dubbed Flight Experiment Mission-02 (FEM-02), the Aegis Guam system fired a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA to intercept an air-launched medium-range ballistic missile target off the coast of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.
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The system uses the new AN/TPY-6 radar and vertical launching system. The target was tracked shortly after launch to intercept it in the first end-to-end tracking use of the radar during a live ballistic missile flight test.
