Word: warhead
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...system. While Pentagon officers insist there will be future chances to halt its construction, a success this week could make that politically all but impossible. Congress is chafing to fund the system (see following story) and was heartened by the first test, in which an interceptor pulverized a fake warhead last October. In a second test in January, however, the interceptor missed its target by 241 ft. when a cooling line clogged and shut down its heat-seeking sensors. As a TIME investigation shows, little is being left to chance this time. So little, in fact, that this...
...rocket launching the target as well as the nature of the target; it knows how powerful the rocket's engine is, where it is coming from and when it is being launched. The crew launching the interceptor will even get to listen in on the countdown of the warhead's rocket as it takes place. All that is valuable intelligence--and much, if not all of it, would be denied to the U.S. if a rogue state decided to strike. Such advantages "place significant limitations" on the value of the test, says Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief weapons tester...
...operational system. The rocket that will ultimately be deployed to lift the interceptor into space--still in development--will shake 10 times as violently as the more gentle boosters scheduled for the first seven tests. While the Pentagon says the shield will defend against "tens" of incoming warheads, all 19 of the Pentagon's tests are against a lone incoming warhead. Jacques Gansler, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, told Congress last week that the testing program will grow more complex as the system develops. "The system design is solid," he declared. But some skepticism remains on Capitol Hill. Thus...
Five minutes into its launch, the California rocket will release its mock warhead. The accompanying balloon will quickly inflate to its 6-ft.-plus diameter. Traveling less than a mile away from the mock warhead, the balloon is supposed to lure the interceptor away from its intended target. The warhead and the balloon, along with the container in which they rode into space, will reach a top speed of 14,700 m.p.h. and a peak altitude nearly 1,000 miles above the earth...
...rely solely on satellites and early-warning radars to trace its target. It will be looking for a target traveling a familiar path--the same California-to-Kwajalein arc used in the previous two tests. And this relatively short distance--as well as safety concerns--means the mock warhead won't be traveling as fast as a genuinely hostile one. This "single end-game geometry," said an independent review panel headed by retired General Larry Welch last fall, "raises questions about the ability of the flight-test program to verify system performance." The Pentagon says it will use computer simulations...