Update | 8 March 2010 Well, damn. That story is dated March 4, 2009. My parents used to get the year wrong when I was a kid. I’d roll my eyes and they warned me that it would happen to me someday. Wow.
India is planning a test of its hit-to-kill theater missile defense system:
The launch will feature two missiles. The “enemy” missile will be a modified version of Dhanush, a surface-to-surface missile. It will take off from a naval ship in the Bay of Bengal and simulate the terminal phase of the flight of a ballistic missile with a range of 1,500 km, similar to Pakistan’s Ghauri. As it zeroes in on the Wheeler Island, off Damra village on the Orissa coast, a Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) missile will lift off from the Wheeler Island, intercept the incoming “enemy” missile at an altitude of 70-80 km in the last one second and a half of its flight and pulverise it.
Loyal readers will know that the rapid proliferation of hit-to-kill technologies, and the total neglect of this development, is one of my hobby horses:
First, once uncommon hit-to-kill technologies are now at the early stages of spreading around the world. Second, the broad focus on space weapons and ASAT technologies, many of which are quite unrealistic and exotic, distracts from the technological challenge posed by the proliferation of hit-to-kill systems. Third, partial arms control measures, such as a ban on kinetic ASAT testing, may mitigate the most threatening aspects of hit-to-kill technology while avoiding some of the difficulties associated with more comprehensive agreements.