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Key Missile Test Delayed
Washington (AFP) May 18, 2000 - A crucial test of the National Missile Defense system has been delayed until early July because of a minor problem in the interceptor that has now been fixed, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Bacon said the delay would have no impact on the timetable for President Bill Clinton's decision on whether to deploy the controversial system.

The test -- an attempted interception of a mock warhead over the Pacific -- had been scheduled for June 26.

"We've known for several weeks that it's probably going to be later than that; it'll probably be in sometime in early July, rather than June 26," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.

He said the schedule was set back for a week after a minor problem was discovered in the interceptor that required it to be sent to its maker, Raytheon Co., for rewiring.

"Now the re-wire is done, it's been tested, they have confidence in it, and they are in the process now of marrying the interceptor to the rocket and shipping it to Kwajalein Island," he said.

"This fix took about a week, and so we've had to delay the test by several days," he said.

Guided by computers linked to radars and early warning satellites, the interceptor will be fired from Kwajalein Island, a Pacific atoll in the Marshall Islands, at a target missile fired from California.

The test's outcome could be a decisive factor in whether President Bill Clinton orders the deployment of the system, a decision he is supposed to make in the early fall.

The Pentagon has said the system must make two interceptions to declare it ready for deployment. Of two previous interception attempts, only one has succeeded.

Copyright 2000 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • National Missile Defense at FAS

    MILSPACE
    Scientist Says Missile Shield Flaws Covered Up
    by Jim Mannion
    Washington (AFP) May 18, 2000 - A prominent scientist has charged that developers of the US National Missile Defense system tampered with test results to hide evidence that sensors on the missile interceptor could not distinguish between a warhead and a simple balloon decoy.




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