Iran has been working steadily over the years to expand their ballistic missile and space program and today on August 5th 2010 the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran is currently in development of a new three stage Space booster vehicle with the aim of being able to place a satellite 600 so miles into space and first test flight of the new rocket should take place next year. It is no secret that any advances from their space program filter down to their military and goes to the development of newer longer range ballistic missile technology. Iran managed to put their first satellite into orbit in February of 2009 and have since been working to build on that success.

This announcement today from Iran highlight’s the growing threat to Europe and the United States and highlights the continued need for development and deployment of counters to these systems and expanding our working relations with Europe on these issues.

The Pakistani military on Saturday May 8, 2010 conduct test launches of the countries Shaheen-1 ballistic missile and Ghaznavi ballistic missile. Both the Shaheen-1 and Ghaznavi missiles are capable of delivering a nuclear payload. Following the test Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani urged the world community to recognize Pakistan as a legitimate nuclear power on equal footing with other world nuclear powers.

The test launches of the Shaheen-1 and Ghaznavi missiles took place at an undisclosed location but the military reported that the tests were a success and that both the Shaheen-1 and the Ghaznavi hit their designated target area’s

Episode two of the Interceptor Shield Report Missile And Air Defense Podcast is now uploaded and ready to be listened to.
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I have uploaded our first test news podcast and it can be listend to at our RSS feed of the podcast here at the following link
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On Thursday February 11th 2010 the Missile Defense Agency conducted the first true live fire test of the Airborne Laser systems against multiple target test missiles in a live fire test. The test comes after years of testing and adjustments and installation of equipment into the revolutionary Airborne Laser Test Bed Plane and testing of the system on the ground of the installed laser systems to determine its ability to track a target in flight.

The Airborne Laser is the most advanced missile defense system currently being deployed by the United States. The Airborne Laser system is a directed energy laser weapon unlike other systems that rely on kinetic impact to destroy a target in flight.

The First Target missile on Thursdays test was launched from a sea based launch platform located off the coast of California at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range and within moments the ALTB “Airborne Laser Test Bed” system had locked onto the boosting missile in its boost phase with its targeting laser, following the lock-on a few moments later the ALTB fired its high-power megawatt laser at the boosting missile heating it to critical mass and destroying the missile in flight.

The test was repeated again a few hours later when another test missile was launched from San Nicolas Island California and was again successfully engaged and destroyed by the Airborne Laser Test Bed system.

Laser systems in recent years for use in air defense have come into fruition and have been being used to destroy incoming artillery and small rockets rounds in warzones with a few ground systems already deployed and operational.

Back in the early 80’s Lasers were looked into as a means for missile and air defense but lasers of solid and liquid state had not reached the level to have enough power to destroy an object in flight and be small enough and portable enough to be feasible in use for a defense system, but with recent achievements in the 90’s and in 2000 of development of new types of Solid and liquid state laser systems the ability to deploy lasers for use in defense have become feasible.

The Chinese government on Monday January 11th announced that they had successful conducted a test of a missile defense system that they stated is capable of intercepting medium range ballistic missiles. The government stated the test was a success but at this point no further information is available on where in China the test took place at, the test on Monday comes as China has denounced the pending sale of the Patriot missile defense system to the country of Taiwan that is currently in progress with the United States and China has stated the sale of the Patriot Missile Defense System would severely effect relations between the United States and China. In recent years the Chinese have been expanding their modernization programs to bring china’s military up to grade with programs for the Navy, Air Force and Army and further expanding its sub fleet and missile boomers strike ability.
Since the 1990’s China has been striving to expand and improve their ballistic missile forces and second strike ability but in recent years China has shown they are now putting effort into developing and acquiring missile defense technology and related knowledge .

China and Missile defense!
China in recent years has not only been expanding its offensive forces but has also been putting effort into developing technology for the development of missile defense systems. Most notably the Chinese conducted their first launch a satellite kill vehicle in January 11th 2007 that intercepted and destroyed and old weather satellite that the Chinese stated was of no longer of any use and was going to be replaced, this test not only showed Chinese ability to further develop their ability to of being able to intercept and destroy enemy satellites but also their ability to build a system for intercepting targets in orbit and now three years since the last test and again on January the 11th China has conducted a new highly visible missile defense test to demonstrate their expanding ability.

The Japanese naval destroyer the JS Myoko “DDG-175” today on October 28th, 2009 achieved the second successful missile Intercept for Japans expanding missile defense program, with the intercept of a target test ballistic missile today. The JS Myoko was operating off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii where the JS Myoko tracked and monitored the target missile that was launched by Personnel at the U.S Navy’s Pacific Missile Test Range Facility.

The crew of the JS Myoko targeted and tracked the missile before firing a single SM-3 Block 1A missile that soon after successfully intercepted the test missile in a successful hit intercept.

The test today not only tested Japan’s third ship to be outfitted and equipped with missile defense ability but also preparedness of the system for integration of the newer SM-3 IIA class missiles, these new class of missiles are currently in joint development between the united states and Japan that are developing the next generation of the SM-3 Missile.

Work on upgrading the JS-myoko to have missile defense ability first started back in January of 2008 when Lockheed martin won the contract to start conversion of the DDG-175 to the Ballistic missile defense role. Previously in December of 2007 Japan conducted its first successful intercept of a ballistic missile with the naval ship the JS Kong.

Missile defense has come to the for front for the country of Japan in recent years with North Korea’s continued testing and developing of ballistic missiles that can threaten Japan along with North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons, Japan has moved the issue of missile defense from the back to the for front and has since be striving to deploy systems to counter these threats and has expanded joint research and protection agreements with the United States.

Currently funding for the completion of the second ground based Interceptor silo’s site for field two at Fort Greely Alaska is at risk, with limited funding from the pentagon completion of field two is at risk of being delayed or stopped, the pentagon has stated to stop now and restart work at a later date will cost two times or more to finish then if construction were to be finished now. As it stands Fort Greely has three missile fields, with field three completed with 20 silos for the ground based interceptor and field two is under construction, field one is complete but is of an older design and currently has six silos’ online.

Why is completion of field two important?
It is important because currently online missiles at Fort Greely are distributed between field one and three, field one is of an older design and maintenance to keep field one online and operational costs twice as two separate individual fields of the new design cost to keep online and operational.

If field two is completed all online and operational missiles can be deployed between field two and three allowing field one to be brought offline and be primarily used when needed for operational testing and functionality of the system as was intended for field one when it was first built, this would be a cost saving not only for missile defense but for the American public. Second with completion of silo field two at a later date if the administration decided to increase deployed grounded based interceptors from the current stated amount of 30 interceptors and increase them to 40 or more ground based interceptors the silo’s at field two would be ready and in place for the increase.

The mater first arose during diplomatic correspondence in late June when the United States first accused Pakistan of modifying US made missile systems that the United States had supplied to Pakistan to be used for other than their first intended role. The United States is accusing the Pakistani government of illegally modifying a Harpoon missile that were sold to Pakistan during the Reagan administration. The suspected modified missile is a Harpoon sea to sea attack missile that the United States is accusing Pakistan of converting the missile from a defensive sea attack missile into an offensive Sea to land attack missile to increase its ability for its navy to reach inland into India, today’s allegations comes after an unreported test was detected but not reported by Pakistan on April 23rd, 2009 and monitored by US Intelligence agencies, but Pakistan is stating the test was of a indigenously built missile system and not of a modified US made Harpoon missile. Modification of US made systems would be a violation of the Arms Control Act and will raise issue’s between the United States and Pakistan at a time when further aid for Pakistan is being debated in congress.

In a step to calm concerns the Pakistani government has invited the United States to inspect their current inventory of Harpoon missile systems to prove they have not modified their acquired systems from the United States.

August 28, 2009, Breaking News: It is emerging today that the United Arab Emirates seized an arms shipment two weeks ago on August the 14th, 2009 and now being publicly confirmed by the UAE “United Arab Emirates” the shipment of armaments containing explosives detonators, Rockets launchers and RPG “Rocket Propelled Grenades” but no word yet on if the shipment contained any large scale missile or missile system parts destined for Iran’s ballistic missile program. The cargo of arms had been falsely labeled as oil drilling equipment bound for Iran. The shipment of armaments was headed for Iran before the ship was seized by the United Arab Emirates. Before the announcement was made today of the seized arms shipment both Iran and North Korea were given fifteen days to respond with a response to the illegal shipment.

Currently all weapon shipments to and from North Korea are banned by United Nation Security Council resolution 1874 that were put into effect following North Korea’s first Nuclear test, today’s announcement by the UEA of the seizure is the first attempted clear violation of the arms embargo to limited the North’s cash flow from weapon sales by the North Korean Government.