Bloomberg:
A device that’s like a spark plug, not a design flaw, was behind the high-profile failure of a U.S.-Japanese missile interceptor built by Raytheon Co. in a test launch in January, a Pentagon review board has found.
The “failure review board” confirmed that the “most likely cause” of the failure was a component in the third, or uppermost, stage of the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA model, according to a Missile Defense Agency summary obtained by Bloomberg News.
The missile is being developed by Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. of Minato-Ku, Japan. Japan is buying the missile to bolster its onshore defenses against North Korea. It’s also the centerpiece of U.S.-European missile defense programs and is to be installed in Poland. The State Department in December approved Japan to buy four of the missile interceptors for as much as $133 million.
