Missile defense test successful: Pentagon

WASHINGTON (AFP) Dec 11, 2003
A missile fired from a US navy ship successfully intercepted another missile Thursday over the Pacific Ocean in a test of a proposed sea-based missile defense system, the Pentagon said.

The SM-3 Standard missile launched from the cruiser USS Lake Erie intercepted and destroyed a target missile launched from a range in Hawaii at about 8:14 am local time (1810 GMT), the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement.

The test was the fourth in a series of six designed to evaluate the sea-based Aegis weapons system's capacity for long-range surveillance and tracking of a medium-range missile.

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