GROUND-BASED MIDCOURSE DEFENSE INTERCEPT TEST DELAYED UNTIL 2010

摘要

A Ground-based Midcourse Defense intercept flight test scheduled to take place by the end of last month never got off the launch pad and has been delayed until early next year, according to the Missile Defense Agency.rnThe intercept attempt, labeled FTG-06 and originally scheduled to have taken place by the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2009, "was delayed due to recently updated target model and simulation predictions," MDA spokesman Rick Lehner tells sister publication Inside Missile Defense in an e-mail, adding: "The new test window to conduct the mission is still being assessed."rnIn a follow-up e-mail, however, Lehner writes that the "test date is still to be determined but likely to take place early in [calendar year] 2010."rnAccording to MDA's justification document accompanying its FY-10 defense budget request, the FTG-06 test was meant to "demonstrate the engagement of a target" launched from Kwajalein Atoll with an Aegis AN/SPY-1 radar system "providing initial track" updates from the Sea-Based X-Band radar. A Ground-Based Interceptor would have been launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base "executing a dogleg maneuver and performing all functions with a medium closing velocity to intercept the lethal object for a more complex target scene."