Navy Shoots Incoming Missile Out of Space

by Kris Osborn

In a recent multi-national missile defense test off the coast of Scotland.

The USS Ross used its Aegis radar technology to identify an approaching ballistic missile threat and then fire a Standard Missile-3 from the ship’s vertical launch tubes up into space to intercept the target, Navy and Raytheon officials said.

The live-fire testing from the USS Ross marked the first time an SM-3 guided interceptor missile was fired from a non-U.S range and the first intercept of a ballistic missile threat in the European theater, a Navy statement said.

A key part of the coalition test was also aimed at demonstrating an ability to successfully defend against longer-range ballistic missiles as well as closer-in air defense threats such as cruise missiles.  While the USS Ross was engaging a ballistic missile target with an SM-3 missile, the Navy’s USS Sullivans, also a destroyer, fired an SM-2 missile to destroy two anti-ship cruise missiles approaching the coalition task force group.

“Nine member nations of the Maritime Theater Missile Defense Forum, under the auspices of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, successfully conducted the simultaneous engagement of a ballistic missile in space and an anti-ship cruise missile target, the first demonstration of this capability in the European theater,” Adm. Mark Ferguson, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe said in a written statement.

The Navy currently deploys four Aegis-radar capable ships in Rota, Spain as part of a broader effort to protect the European continent from ballistic missile threats.

Aegis is the name of the Navy’s ship-based missile defense radar system which is able to send electro-magnetic pings up into space and track approaching short and intermediate-range ballistic missile threats. The system on Navy ships is currently protecting Europe from potential ballistic missile threats such as Iran.