U.S. to Try Again on Missile Defenses as N. Korea Threat Grows

The Pentagon’s next test of its ground-based system to destroy missiles aimed at the U.S. is tentatively scheduled for the first quarter of 2017, providing the new president evidence of whether the troubled program could stop the nuclear weapons North Korea threatens to launch.
With North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un escalating his efforts to develop warheads and missiles capable of hitting the U.S. — along with his vows to use them — a test failure would confront the next administration with difficult decisions about a system that the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has estimated will cost at least $39 billion.
The planned test in early 2017 to shoot down a dummy target replicating the threat from an intercontinental ballistic missile will be the first since a successful interception in June 2014. And that, in turn, was the first success since a test in 2008, which was followed by two failures in 2010 and an extensive effort to fix flaws with the interceptor’s warhead.

 

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