US missile test over Pacific fails: Pentagon

A missile test by the multi-billion-dollar US defense system has once again failed with an interceptor failing to hit an incoming ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean.

The advanced missile-defense interceptor, fired from Vandenberg air base in California failed to hit a long-range ballistic missile launched from an American Army test site at Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, the Pentagon said in a brief statement on Friday.

“An intercept was not achieved,” the statement said. “Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept.”

The failure questions the credibility of the system which has not had a successful test since 2008. The US military had not conducted any tests since two failures in 2010.

The system “is something the U.S. military, and the American people, cannot depend upon,” said Philip E. Coyle III, who once ran the Pentagon’s weapons-testing program and is with the Center for Arms Control.

It has cost the US $34 billion to have 30 of the ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California.

Despite the repeated failures, the administration announced in March that it would increase the number of interceptors to 44 by 2017.

The additional missiles will be deployed in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, where there are already 26 interceptors.