An interceptor moves toward its target after being fired from a vertical launching system on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, on Dec. 10, 2024. (Missile Defense Agency)
The Missile Defense Agency has carried out its first live intercept from Guam of a ballistic missile target, a “critical milestone” in the effort to create a defensive network to shield the American territory, the agency said.
The medium-range ballistic missile target, which was parachuted out of a Globemaster C-17, was intercepted Tuesday off the coast of Andersen Air Force Base, the agency said in a news release that day.
The Missile Defense Agency said earlier this year that the C-17 would be flying at an altitude greater than 20,000 feet and at least 800 nautical miles east of Guam over the Pacific Ocean.
The live intercept “marks a pivotal step taken in defense of Guam initiatives and partnerships and provides critical support to the overall concept, requirements validation, data-gathering and model maturation for the future Guam Defense System,” the agency said.
Rear Adm. Greg Huffman, commander of Joint Task Force-Micronesia, called the test “a critical milestone in the defense of Guam and the region,”
“It confirmed our ability to detect, track, and engage a target missile in flight, increasing our readiness to defend against evolving adversary threats,” he said in the release.
The missile was intercepted by Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Guam System, which integrates the AN/TPY-6 radar, a vertical launching system and standard missile, the company said in a separate news release Tuesday.
In an environmental assessment issued this summer, the Missile Defense Agency described Guam’s planned system as “a layered defense consisting of various land-, sea-, and air-based weapons; sensor and communications systems; and command and control platforms that are used to defeat incoming ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles in all phases of flight.”
The Defense Department plans to conduct two missile tests on Guam each year over the next decade as it completes the full system.
The completion of such a 360-degree, integrated missile-defense system for Guam is a top priority for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The island is home to Andersen, Naval Base Guam and Camp Blaz, a massive Marine Corps base still under construction.
The island would serve as a crucial hub in the event of a conflict with China because it is the westernmost American territory and the closest to the South China Sea, a flashpoint in the region.
It is also vulnerable to missile launches from North Korea.
Future flight tests and tracking exercises will use interceptors from the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, and Patriot systems.
The tests will eventually include the not-yet-fielded Indirect Fire Protection Capability, or IFPC — a mobile, ground-based system used to defeat cruise missiles, drones, rockets and mortars.
