(CNN) — A missile fired from a United States Navy warship successfully intercepted an ICBM, for the first this monday, during a test of the US missile defense system.
The recently demonstrated capability could bolster the missile defense system against potential missile threats emanating from countries like North Korea.
US military personnel and sailors aboard USS John Finn “intercepted and destroyed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) target representative of the threat,” using the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IIA interceptor from the warship “during a flight test demonstration in the vast ocean area northeast of Hawaii,” the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement.
The launch of the international ballistic missile
The ICBM test was fired from the US Army test site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, then intercepted northeast of Hawaii.
Previous tests of the missile defense system involved ground interceptors in Alaska and California, which shot down test ICBMs.
Officials say that having the ability of a warship to also shoot down a missile threat increases the overall capability of the missile defense system.
“The Department is investigating the possibility of augmenting the Mid-Terrestrial Defense system by deploying additional sensors and weapons systems to guard against unexpected developments in the missile threat,” said Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Admiral Jon Hill, in a statement.
“We have shown that an Aegis BMD vessel equipped with the SM-3 Block IIA missile can defeat an ICBM-class target, which is a step in the process of determining its viability as part of a layered architecture for territory defense. «He added.
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