Threat Awareness And Activation
Interceptor Shield Report
Nathan J Hunt
Over the last week the world has been on alert and monitoring North Korea following indications it was preparing to test fire its Taepodong-2 missile , earlier this month news began to surface in the news that Intelligence agencies had detected the Taepodong-2 missile being taken from storage and was being assembled at the launch site. Over the last week North Korea started filling the missile. Do to the possibility of North Korea launching its missile on the weekend; the Pentagon activated the Missile Defense system from development mode to active operational mode, Japan also puts its SDF on alert and readied its Japanese Aegis destroyers.
During North Koreas last ICBM missile test in 1998 it fired a missile that flew over northern Japan. And landed on the other side. Following this test North Korea imposed a self-imposed moratorium on its long range missile testing; this week North Korea announced it was no longer bound by this moratorium.
The current missile defense system that has been activated consists of ground based interceptors and sea based missile Aegis systems, these are supported a by network of state of the art Radar systems on land and sea, the most recently deployed one is the Sea based X-band radar system deployed off Alaska.
On Thursday June 22 the MDA “Missile Defense Agency” conducted a sea based intercept using a Aegis Missile destroyer. At 12 P.M Hawaii standard time ( 6 P.M Eastern) A target missile was launched from the pacific missile range facility, the crew of the USS Shiloh proceeded to track and lock onto the missile. Four minutes later the crew launched a SM-3 missile that achieved a hit to kill intercept 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean, two other Aegis Destroyers took part in the test one with a modified Aegis system linked up with land based radar to test the ships abilities and a Aegis Destroyer from Japans SDF “Self Defense Force”, this marks the first time an allied country has taken an active part in a missile defense test.
