USNI News:

The Missile Defense Agency proved that a Navy destroyer with a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA can stop a simple intercontinental ballistic missile threat, but more work remains to prove whether this combination could contribute to homeland defense, the MDA director said Wednesday.

Vice Adm. Jon Hill described the Flight Test Aegis Weapon System (FTM) 44, which took place in the Pacific in November after pandemic-related delays earlier in the year: A simple ICBM target was launched from the Army’s Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Satellites detected the launch, and a slew of satellites and sensors, including on the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii, tracked the target. Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS John Finn (DDG-113), positioned hundreds of miles east of Hawaii, launched an SM-3 Block IIA missile from its deck based on its best fire control solution at the time, and the missile itself maneuvered to successfully hit the target as it received more information in flight.

The goal of the test, Hill said while speaking at the annual McAleese FY 2022 Defense Programs Conference, was “to prove that we have the ability to leverage the robustness in the [Aegis] program, so that was really the first test just to see if it’s feasible. And we learned a lot.”

Hill said the crew of John Finn, with limited data due to limited sensor coverage across the vast Pacific, maneuvered the ship to get the highest probability of kill…



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