The US Missile Defence Agency said Wednesday that the test flight over the Pacific Ocean had failed as the interceptor missile did not take off and was automatically shut down.

A rocket carrying a mock warhead was launched from Kodiak in Alaska, but the interceptor failed to make its take from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific due to an "unknown anomaly", said the agency.

The US media gave a harsh verdict of President George W. Bush's planned missile shield.

The New York Times called it "the naked shield" in a critical editorial.

"If it were not for the mammoth waste of taxpayers' money, the latest failure in the Bush administration's obstinate deployment of a totally unproven missile defence system could be titled Star Wars: The Farce."

The test missile should have intercepted the dummy warhead 160 kilometers (100 miles) above the Earth and the failed flight cost 85 million dollars. The New York Times said it was the latest proof that the shield "remains firmly in the dream stage."

The Washington Post also called it an "embarrassing setback".

The first test of its kind in two years had already been put off four times due to bad weather at launch sites and, on Sunday, due to the failure of a radio transmitter.

The last test on December 12, 2002 was also a failure.

"As the ground-based interceptor at Kwajalein Atoll was preparing to launch approximately 16 minutes later, it was automatically shut down due to an unknown anomaly," the MDA said in a statement explaining the latest test.

The atoll is in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific, where the Ronald Reagan Test site is located.

"Program officials will review pre-launch data to determine the cause of the shutdown," the agency said without indicating when the next test might take place.

Ideally, the test should end in an intercept, but the agency says the chief aim is to gather data in preparation for a fully-fledged intercept attempt next March or April.

In earlier tests, target missiles have been successfully intercepted in five out of eight attempts.

Bush has ordered the deployment of a limited defence shield by the end of 2004. The overall missile defence programme is expected to cost 50 billion dollars.

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