Pentagon’s New Ballistic Missile Interceptor Doesn’t Work

A missile fired from the USS John Paul Jones intercepted a target at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in 2017.

Breaking Defense: Pentagon’s New Ballistic Missile Interceptor Doesn’t Work, Suffers Years-Long Delay

What happens when the Pentagon's new ballistic missile defeat program doesn't work? They keep using the old one, which has a spotty track record.

PENTAGON: The Pentagon’s next-generation interceptor warhead to kill ballistic missiles, the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (KV), is at least two years away from working out its issues, despite years of development. That pushes back the fielding of the last pieces of a $40 billion dollar missile defense system that has struggled since the late 1990s.

The RKV delay won’t effect the overall expansion of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system from 44 to 64 interceptors based in California and Alaska — meant to protect the United States from North Korean missiles — but it does ensure that the existing interceptor, the Exoastmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), s will stay in service even longer, despite a spotty track record.

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WNU Editor: No one said that this program was going to be easy to pull-off. But after billions of dollars spent and only a so-so success rate in intercepting incoming missiles during fixed tests, you have to wonder if this program is ever going to meet its expectations.