Oct 2 1999
From The Space Library
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) successfully conducted the first of a series of tests of a proposed missile defense system. An unarmed Minuteman missile, carrying a dummy warhead and decoy balloon, launched over the Pacific Ocean from Vandenberg Air Force Base; 20 minutes later an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, a 55-inch-long (1.4-meter-long), 120-pound (54.4-kilogram) device built by Raytheon Corporation, launched aboard a booster rocket from the Marshall Islands. The two missiles collided 10 minutes later, 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) from California and 140 miles (225 kilometers) above the ocean. According to the CIA, when DOD conducted the test, North Korea, Iran, and Syria were developing long-range missiles that could hit the United States.
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