Sailor’s error ruins $100 million US missile test | World | The Times & The Sunday Times

Sailor’s error ruins $100 million US missile test 

Sailor’s error ruins $100 million US missile test

Michael Evans

July 26 2017, 12:01am, The Times

The crew of the USS John Paul Jones, a guided-missile destroyer, fired an SM-3 block IIA interceptor targeting an unarmed ballistic missile that had been launched from HawaiiAP

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A sailor on board a US Navy destroyer pressed the wrong button during an exercise last month, ruining a $100 million missile test.
It was the fourth test of a new super-interceptor, designed as part of a joint US and Japanese military programme to combat an intermediate-range ballistic missile attack by North Korea. Three earlier tests had been successful.

 

The crew of the USS John Paul Jones, a guided-missile destroyer, fired an SM-3 block IIA interceptor targeting an unarmed ballistic missile that had been launched from Hawaii.

It was the first test of this interceptor from a warship equipped with the US Aegis combat system that is supposed to manage the whole “hit-to-kill” operation. The interceptor should have hit the target with the force of a ten-ton lorry travelling at 600mph, destroying it.
When the interceptor exploded before reaching the incoming missile, the Pentagon feared that the flight test had failed because of some disastrous technical fault.
After an inquiry, investigators realised that a US Navy operator monitoring the data had misidentified the target as a “friendly” missile and pressed the button for the interceptor to self-destruct.
The estimated cost of the failed test is about $100 million. It involved about 340 members of the military aboard the destroyer and several hundred operating the dummy missile launch and radar-tracking system from Hawaii.
There were also surveillance aircraft and while the dummy missile escaped unharmed, it then fell into the ocean. Lieutenant-General Sam Greaves, director of the missile agency, said the interceptor and system “have been eliminated as the potential root cause”.
The SM-3 interceptor is the mainstay of America’s missile-defence network in Europe. It can be launched from ships or from land. There are Aegis-class ships off Europe equipped with the interceptors and the first land-based version became operational in Romania this year.
The human-error failure of the SM-3 IIA test flight last month is the first setback for the United States in the Standard interceptor programme. There have been 25 successful intercepts since the programme began, using earlier versions.
The latest SM-3 IIA interceptor, which should be operational next year, has a larger rocket motor and a bigger kinetic warhead. None of the interceptors have explosive warheads.