The United States for the first time confirmed on Wednesday that it had readied its missile interceptors to meet a specific threat — North Korea’s launch of a long-range missile said to be capable of reaching Alaska.
The intercontinental Taepodong 2 missile fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan less than a minute after launch, along with at least five shorter-range missiles, leaving in doubt whether any shootdown attempt would have worked.
“What I will tell you is that each and every launch was detected and monitored and that the interceptors were operational during the missile launches that took place,” Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.
In the past, U.S. officials have said the fledgling missile defense system, while still being tested, has been made “operational” many times since taking shape in 2004. But they have never specified a specific moment.
“Obviously this was brought up for a specific event,” a defense official said, referring to activation of the interceptors to be prepared for the Taepodong 2 shot.
The U.S. Northern Command operates the interceptors — now numbering nine at Fort Greely, Alaska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California — as part of its homeland defense mission.
Top commanders were able to determine quickly Pyongyang’s launches posed no threat to the United States or its territories, the command said in a statement Tuesday night.
Quick decisions required
The system includes early-warning satellites for launch detection, ground- and sea-based radar stations for surveillance and tracking, the interceptors to destroy incoming warheads plus command nodes in Alaska and Colorado.
The Pentagon has shot down mock warheads in five of 10 highly scripted intercept tests of the ground-based system. The United States has spent more than $92 billion on missile defense since then-President Ronald Reagan launched what critics called his “Star Wars” initiative.
In a typical engagement scenario, infrared sensors aboard satellites detect the hot plume of a missile launch and alert operations centers of a possible attack.
Sensors are then keyed to pick out the warhead from among decoys and space debris, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
‘Very confident’
Based on tracking data, an interceptor, consisting of a barrel-sized “kill vehicle” mounted atop a booster rocket, may be launched to engage the threat — a decision that must be made within minutes.
In the case of the Taepodong 2, which fell harmlessly into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan about 40 seconds after launch, there was “far too little time to make a decision on whether to shoot it down,” said Victoria Samson, an expert on missile defense at the private Center for Defense Information.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, who is overseeing the system’s development as head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said last month he was “very confident” it could shoot down an incoming North Korean warhead.
