Defense News:
WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency move into the second half of 2018, the SM-3 Block IIA missile is heading for a crucial test that the Pentagon hopes will dispel nagging doubts after two successive failures.
Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, the head of the MDA, told lawmakers in April that the next test of the IIA will come before the end of the calendar year, a test in which the agency will try to put a string of bad luck behind it as it pushes toward the ultimate goal of testing the interceptor against an intercontinental ballistic missile by the end of 2020.
Following a successful intercept in February 2017, a test that same year failed after a sailor error caused a IIA launched from the destroyer John Paul Jones to self-destruct in flight. A second test failed in January 2018 went awry because of an as-yet unnamed component misfired, the significance of which Greaves has downplayed.
