The target ICBM was fired from Kodiak, Alaska, and was then located and monitored by different tracking systems on land, at sea and on orbiting satellites.

They then "provided data to the missile defense system's Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications -- C2BMC -- system, and also to the Ground-based Mid-course Defense fire control system in Colorado Springs, Colo., to support a simulated interceptor missile engagement," the MDA said in a statement Friday.

The MDA said that among the systems involved were a movable AN/TPY-2 X-band radar based in Juneau, Alaska; a U.S. Navy Aegis destroyer carrying a SPY-1 radar system; an early warning radar operating from Beale Air Force Base in California; and the Sea-Based X-band radar on its gigantic towable floating platform in the Pacific.

The MDA statement described the test as "the most challenging flight test of the missile defense system's command and control software to date." During the test, defense systems analyzed data coming in from several different radar sources at the same time to produce an "engagement solution" that would have provided the necessary data for a Ground-based Mid-course Interceptor to hit and destroy the ICBM, the agency said.

Target tracking data gathered by the different radars was sent to the Ground-based Mid-course Defense fire control system at the Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., the MDA said.

The system produced in real time an intercept solution, even though the ICBM could only be tracked in the planned intercept area for a shorter period of time than had been anticipated, the MDA said. Then operational crews at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California practiced the simulated launch of a GBI.

At the same time, the same tracking information was transmitted to the U.S. Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, where a second intercept solution was produced for a Standard Missile-3 that would have been launched from an Aegis-class U.S. Navy warship. The SM-3 would have been fired on receipt of the correct launching time from the AN/TPY-2 radar based in Juneau, the agency said.

The MDA said the relevant operational test agencies U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Strategic Command all took part in the exercise.

Analysts said the test was of importance for several reasons: It was the first successful integration of four radars to send crucial tracking data to provide an intercept solution in real time and it also marked a step forward in boosting ballistic missile defense technology to see through the countermeasures with which Russia in particular is equipping its latest generation of ICBMs.

"This achievement affirms the current technology to track and discriminate a warhead with countermeasures and decoys of future ballistic missile configurations," said Riki Ellison, president of the Missile Defense Advocacy Association.

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