Edwards Air Base
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — Over the summer, the Air Force Test Center sent a C-17 with air and maintenance crews from Edwards to Hawaii, but it was no vacation. The crews worked 24-hour shifts for several months to support a Missile Defense Agency test of the Ballistic Missile Defense System over the western Pacific Ocean.
Edward’s role in the test was to launch a ballistic missile target at a precise time and location for the defense shields to track and terminate. The 412th Maintenance Group personnel spent the months leading up to the test keeping the missile under “strict environmental conditions on the back of the aircraft.”
“High altitude, heavy weight airdrop is something we’re doing a lot of here at Edwards, supporting not only MDA, but NASA with the Orion capsule drops that we’ve been doing out at Yuma,” said Capt. Stephen Koether, 418th Flight Test Squadron, C-17 experimental test pilot.
“Dropping something that heavy at that high of an altitude is not trivial, and the test center specifically, is getting very good at those unique missions.”
The airdrop supported MDA’s Ballistic Missile Defense System designed to negate ballistic missile threats. Specifically, this was an operational test of the THAAD weapon system located on Wake Island and the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense from the Navy’s USS John Paul Jones guided missile destroyer.
After three months of preparation and multiple delays, the test, designated “Flight Test Operational-02 Event 2a,” was successfully executed Oct. 31.
Southeast of Wake Island, a C-17 supplied by Air Mobility Command launched a Short Range Air Launch Target (SRALT) over the Pacific Ocean that was detected and intercepted by the THAAD weapon system from Wake Island.
As the AMC C-17 turned towards home, the AFTC C-17 manned by an Edwards crew, launched a second target, an extended Medium Range Ballistic Missile (eMRBM) into the debris field created by the THAAD weapon system,which intercepted and destroyed the SRALT. One important aspect of the test event was to demonstrate that Aegis BMD was able to detect a target inside of a debris field.
Aegis BMD detected and tracked the eMRBM with its radar from the USS John Paul Jones while simultaneously engaging a BQM-74E air-breathing target with a Standard Missile-2 Block IIIA guided missile…
