The U.S. Missile Defense Agency on Dec. 8 conducted the second developmental flight test of its Standard Missile (SM)-3 Block 2A interceptor and awarded Raytheon a contract to build 17 more. Two days later, the MDA carried out the first intercept test involving a land-based variant of the SM-3 Block IB, a smaller interceptor deployed primarily on ships at sea. The land-based SM-3 Block IB variant is being developed as part of the MDA multiphased plan for defending Europe against missile threats. In the Dec. 10 test, the Block IB interceptor, cued by a remote AN/ TPY-2 radar, lifted off from the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Complex on Kauai, Hawaii, and destroyed a ballistic missile target that had been launched from a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft. The test's success puts the MDA on track to begin deploying SM-3 Block IB interceptors in Romania next year, Raytheon said.
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