BMD Watch: NCADE breakthrough

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Advocates of the U.S. ballistic missile defense program got a chance to celebrate Christmas early this year. On Tuesday, for the first time in history a manned interceptor fighter shot down a ballistic missile that had been launched in a test from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The implications of the success were enormous. The missiles used in the test, the AIM-9X, can be deployed on a wide variety of aircraft. It can even be armed on an unmanned aerial vehicle.

The test also for the first time made the prospect of boost missile defense technically possible. If fighter planes can be maintained in the air sufficiently close to an ICBM launch base, the test proved they now have the weapons capability to shoot the missile down before it achieves high speed from a range of up to 100 miles away.

The test was also the fifth successful interception of a missile target by some element of the U.S. BMD program in a space of or 66 days, a most impressive rhythm of testing.

Riki Ellison, president of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said Tuesday's test was "the first air-to-air intercept of a ballistic missile target by a missile defense system."

"Yesterday in the skies over New Mexico, a U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter launched two air-to-air (AIM-9X) missiles and successfully intercepted a boosting rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range, marking the first time a missile defense intercept was made from an air-based platform," Ellison said.

"The two-stage air-to-air missiles have a new liquid propellant in their second stage rocket motor to provide the velocity necessary to intercept missiles in their initial boosting stage. This type of missile defense launched from a fighter jet within 100 miles of a missile launch adds more robust and redundancy to an already layered missile defense system," he said.

"Not only can the AIM-9X terminate missiles in the boosting phase, it is also effective in the descent and terminal phase of a ballistic missile. This missile defense system is called the Network Centric Airborne Defense Element -- NCADE -- and can be used on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles -- UAVs -- and current and future U.S. aircraft such as the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-22, and F-35, as well as aircraft of other countries," Ellison said.

Indian ABM interceptor hits "virtual" target

India this week announced a successful anti-ballistic missile test over the Bay of Bengal Sunday.

An AAD01 anti ballistic missile interceptor Sunday morning hit a simulated electronic ballistic missile at a height of 15,000 feet, the Hindu newspaper reported Monday.

The test resulted in a "great endo-atmospheric intercept" against an electronic target, V.K. Saraswat, chief controller, Defense Research and Development Organization R & D -- missiles and strategic systems, told The Hindu from Wheeler Island off the Orissa coast from where the interceptor was fired.

Saraswat said the procedure had confirmed the interceptor's capability to change direction, or maneuver, at high speeds within the atmosphere, or "under endo-atmospheric conditions."

The Hindu noted that the DRDO is ambitiously pushing ahead with a "made-in-India" two-tier ABM defense system with weapons designed to destroy incoming missiles both inside and outside the atmosphere. As we reported in these columns, India successfully carried out its first exo-atmospheric BMD test last year. The Hindu said that interception took place 30 miles above the Earth.

Saraswat told the Hindu that the Long Range Tracking Radar Stations, multi-functional fire control radar, the mission control center, mobile communication terminal and the interceptor itself all worked smoothly as an integrated system. He said the interceptor was fired from a mobile launch vehicle.

The Hindu described the AAD as a single-stage solid-fuel missile guided by an inertial navigation system, a high-speed computer and an electro-mechanical activator. The report said the interceptor reached an altitude of 18 miles and traveled nearly 80 mile in all during its flight.

The newspaper said M. Natarajan, the scientific adviser to India's defense minister, observed the test through a video link.