Late Friday evening Hawaiian Standard Time, a liquid-fueled single stage Scud missilestreaked across the tropical black sky over the Pacific Ocean near the northern islands of Hawaii after being launched from a sea-based floating barge. Moments later, after being detected and tracked by an X-band radar located on the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Kauai, a ground-based mobile defensive missile was launched from a different location on the same range in Barking Sands.
This defensive missile accelerated quickly and flew with a brilliant white slash against thenight. At approximately 9:15 p.m. Friday Hawaiian Standard Time, on the border where space and the atmosphere meet, the Scud missile was destroyed by the defensive missile as it flew with high velocity right into the center of the incoming missile. The mobile ground-based missile defense system that includes the defensive missile, its launcher and its X- band radar is called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.
This marks the fourth successful test of this current system and follows the successes of the Ground-Based Interceptor last month, the Patriot 3 Success flight in July and the Aegis Standard Missile 3 intercept in June.
It ain't Reagan's SDI but it ain't whistlin' Dixie neither.
