WASHINGTON – A test of the national ballistic missile defense system failed Monday when an interceptor missile didn’t get out of its silo, the second failure in as many months.
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In Monday’s test, the interceptor missile launched from Kwajalein Island in the Pacific was to target a mock ICBM fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska. The target missile launched at 1:22 a.m. EST without any problems, but the interceptor did not launch, the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement.
The previous test, on Dec. 15, failed under similar circumstances. The target missile launched, but the interceptor did not. Military officials later blamed that failure on fault-tolerance software that was oversensitive to small errors in the flow of data between the missile and a flight computer, and shut down the launch.
The Dec. 15 test was the first in two years. Before that, the program had gone five-for-eight in attempts to intercept a target. Missile defense officials say each test costs $85 million.