Exclusive - U.S. plans to test THAAD missile defences as North Korea tensions mount

By Phil Stewart

 

FILE PHOTO - A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency. U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States plans to carry out a new test of its THAAD missile defence system against an intermediate-range ballistic missile in the coming days, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, as tensions with North Korea climb.

 

Despite being planned months ago, the U.S. missile defence test will gain significance in the wake of North Korea's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on July 4 that has heightened concerns about the threat from Pyongyang.

 

The test will be the first of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to defend against a simulated attack by an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), one of the officials said. The THAAD interceptors will be fired from Alaska.

 

The United States has THAAD interceptors in Guam that are meant to help guard against a missile attack from a country such as North Korea.

The officials who disclosed to Reuters the precise nature and timing of the test spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Asked by Reuters, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency confirmed that it aimed to carry out a THAAD flight test "in early July."

 

Chris Johnson, a spokesman at the Missile Defense Agency, said the THAAD weapon system at the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska, would "detect, track and engage a target with a THAAD interceptor."

 

"The test is designated as Flight Test THAAD (FTT)-18," Johnson said, without elaborating.

 

In May testimony to Congress, however, Vice Admiral James Syring, then the director of the Missile Defense Agency, said FTT-18 would aim to demonstrate THAAD's ability to intercept a separating IRBM target.

 

THAAD is a ground-based missile defence system that defends against short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the terminal stage of flight.

 

Syring, in his testimony, said THAAD had a 100 percent successful track record in its 13 flight tests so far.

 

Lockheed Martin Corp <LMT.N> is the prime contractor for the THAAD system.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-07-08

Go long defense contractors...

Would Fatboy Kim really take on the States ? I can see the USofA  taking on N. Korea , not had an Asian war for a while.

21 hours ago, toofarnorth said:

Would Fatboy Kim really take on the States ? I can see the USofA  taking on N. Korea , not had an Asian war for a while.

His fantasy objective is reunification of the peninsula under NORK leadership.  He's got literally thousands of artillery pieces all along the DMZ with the lion's share trained on Seoul (more than US strikes could take out even in days, and many on rail-mobile platforms that'd take even longer to neutralize, making Seoul one big dead man walking) and a million+ NORKs (vs a few tens of thousands US + S. Korean altogether scattered around the South) that could overrun the South long before reinforcements from anywhere could come riding to the rescue.  He sees having a red button of his own to push as his insurance policy that there's nothing the US can/will do about it when he decides to invade, even when US troops are killed.  Kicking the can down the road is going to have its price...

 

 

They should test the THAAD system sitting in SK on the next missile fired by NK. A successful hit might change the local thinking.

 

Okay, now the US needs to dead drag out of mothballs a few of their old decommissioned ships

 

Lug them all the way over the Pacific (Satellites will show NK the 'appearance' of a fully working flotilla)

 

Anchor them in a ring around NK, in the same economic zone the NK targets

 

Do live webcast transmissions of the THAADs decimating the old ships

 

Maybe nuclear-torpedo a couple of them for good luck