Word: interceptor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...same ocean are going to be "Iranian." The timing of the test, however, has nothing to do with a missile test-fired by Iran on Tuesday. That was a medium-range Sajjil-2 missile capable of targeting Israel or U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf. Next month's U.S. interceptor test will, instead, be aimed at the as-yet-hypothetical threat of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), even though such a threat has been deemed by the Obama Administration to be unlikely in the immediate future. (Read "Scrapping the Missile Shield: Militarily Sound...
...potential Iranian ICBM had been slower to develop than previously estimated," Ellen Tauscher, the State Department's arms-control chief, told Congress. Some intelligence estimates say an Iranian ICBM might not happen until 2020. That assessment prompted the President, with Pentagon support, to scrap a land-based interceptor system based in Poland and the Czech Republic and instead to deploy ships capable of shooting down the short- and mid-range Iranian missiles that U.S. intelligence believes pose a more imminent threat - like the sort of missile test-fired by Iran this week. (Watch TIME's video "Ahmadinejad Says Obama Should...
...Next month's missile test not only will be aimed at a threat deemed less than urgent but will also involve tougher technical challenges. Destroying a "North Korean" missile involves hitting it as it zooms from left to right across an interceptor's field of view, but the locations of the "Iranian" missile and the U.S. interceptors require more of a head-on collision. That means the closing speed between the two projectiles will be faster than in previous tests: close to 18,000 m.p.h., compared with 15,000 m.p.h. in prior exercises...
...That reduced shoot-down window means the interceptor will have to work more quickly to do its job. "Whenever we have a situation where we're taking on a missile more head-on than from the side, that increases the challenges," Army Lieut. General Patrick O'Reilly, the U.S. missile-defense chief, told a defense gathering sponsored by Reuters on Monday. The test is expected to send an interceptor missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at a fake Iranian missile, fired from the Marshall Islands. (Read "A Brief History of Missile Defense...
...also been good for the high-tech U.S. arms industry. Despite the global recession, Arab states have signed huge deals for U.S. military hardware, whose sophistication has been on full display in two long wars in the neighborhood. Petraeus said countries in the region now deploy eight Patriot missile-interceptor batteries - up from zero a few years ago - made by Raytheon Corp. And the Pentagon last month announced that Kuwait had ordered upgrades of its Patriot missile system, in a deal worth $410 million. But Raytheon isn't the only beneficiary of anxiety over Iran. The United Arab Emirates this...