Success in U.S. missile tests

Press, 13 June 1984, Page 10

Success in U.S. missile tests

NZPA-AP Washington An experimental United States army missile scored what is believed to be the first successful intercept of an on-coming ballistic missile warhead, Defence Department officials said yesterday. The army missile, fired from an island in the midPacific on Monday, hit a dummy warhead carried by a U.S. Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg air force base on the California coast, the officials said.

The intercept, with a nonnuclear device outside the atmosphere, was disclosed by the Pentagon. It called it a “successful intercept of a re-entry vehicle” in a programme called Homing Overlay experiment.

Three previous attempts to destroy targets had failed, said Major General Lyle Barker, army chief of information.

According to officials, the intercepting missile was launched from Meek Island, part of the Kwajalein group.

Once above the atmosphere, the interceptor separated from its booster rocket and its long-wave, infra-red sensor and guidance computer locked on to the target warhead.

The infra-red sensor can detect heat equivalent to that of a human body more than 1600 km away when operating against the cold background of space, officials said. Just seconds before impact a metal device shaped somewhat like the frame of an umbrella unfurled from the neck of the interceptor vehicle. This device has ribs studded with weights, the officials said, and is designed to result in what was termed a "shattering collision ”