The US Missile Defense Agency successfully intercepted an air-launched intermediate range ballistic missile target during a test off Guam for the first time, a significant milestone in the island's defense capabilities, the Pentagon said yesterday.
Guam, a US territory in the Western Pacific, is a strategic military outpost that is located closer to China than to Hawaii.
It plays a crucial role in maintaining US presence in the region and deterring potential adversaries.
Photo courtesy of the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service
The successful test underscores the Pentagon's commitment to bolstering Guam's defenses against evolving missile threats.
During the test, dubbed Flight Experiment Mission-02 (FEM-02), the Aegis Guam System, integrated with the new AN/TPY-6 radar and Vertical Launching System, fired a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA.
The missile — made by RTX Corp, formerly Raytheon — successfully intercepted an air-launched medium range ballistic missile target off the coast of Andersen Air Force Base.
Agency Director Lieutenant General Heath Collins hailed the test as a "tremendous group effort," emphasizing its significance in validating joint tracking architecture and integrated air and missile defense capabilities for Guam.
The successful intercept is part of a broader initiative to develop the Guam Defense System (GDS), which aims to provide an enhanced integrated air and missile defense system.
The agency plans to use the data gathered from this experiment to further refine and validate the concept and requirements for the future GDS.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
RSS