[Launch Alert] Friday Missile Launch

[Brian Webb]

	     ASTRONOMY/SPACE ALERT FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
				  
			 Brian Webb, KD6NRP
		     Ventura County, California
		    E-mail: kd6nrp@earthlink.net
	      Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp
				       
				   2002 March 13 (Wednesday) 19:25 PST
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			  Friday Missile Launch
				    
A modified Minuteman II missile is scheduled for launch from
Vandenberg AFB this Friday. The missile is set to leave its silo at
northwest Vandenberg at 18:00 PST, the start of a four hour launch
window.

After emerging from its silo, the vehicle will climb steeply towards
the west and send an unarmed warhead and three balloon decoys to the
central Pacific as part of a missile defense test. If all goes well,
an interceptor launched from the Marshall Islands will intercept the
warhead at an altitude of about 140 miles.

For observers in western California, the launch may be difficult to
see because it occurs just before sunset. However, viewers in Nevada,
Arizona, western New Mexico, southwestern Utah, and parts of Mexico
could see an impressive display as the missile's sunlit exhaust plume
is suspended against the dusk sky.

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The following is a Defense Department press advisory regarding
Friday's missile defense test.

PRESS ADVISORY from the United States Department of Defense

March 13, 2002

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will conduct a developmental flight
test to include the planned intercept of a long-range ballistic
missile target in support of the missile defense test program on March
15, 2002. The planned flight test launch window is scheduled for 9
p.m. to 1 a.m. EST.

The test will involve the launch of an Orbital Suborbital Program
(OSP) long-range missile from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The OSP, a
modified Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile, will carry a
mock warhead and three balloon decoys. About 20 minutes after the
target missile is launched, and about 4,800 miles away, a Payload
Launch Vehicle missile carrying a prototype exoatmospheric kill
vehicle (EKV) interceptor will launch from the Ronald Reagan Missile
Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
About 10 minutes later the intercept should take place at an altitude
of approximately 140 miles above the central Pacific Ocean during the
midcourse phase of the target warhead's flight.

This will be an integrated system test, with all representative system
elements participating:  space-based missile warning sensor;
ground-based early warning radar, the prototype X-Band radar at
Kwajalein Atoll and the battle management, command, control and
communications system located at Kwajalein Atoll and the Joint
National Integration Facility in Colorado Springs, Colo. Since the
system is in its research and development phase, these elements serve
as either prototypes or surrogates for system elements which are in
the developmental stage and have not yet been produced for actual
operational use.

This will be the sixth intercept test of the Ground-based Midcourse
Defense (GMD) system (formerly National Missile Defense) research and
development program. The first test on Oct. 3, 1999 resulted in the
successful intercept of a ballistic missile target. The second test
took place on Jan. 19, 2000 and did not achieve an intercept due to a
clogged cooling pipe on the EKV, but did successfully test the
integrated system of elements. The third test, on July 8, 2000, did
not result in an intercept due an unsuccessful separation of the EKV
from the booster rocket. The fourth test, on July 14, 2001, achieved a
successful intercept of a ballistic missile target. The fifth test, on
Dec. 3, 2001, also resulted in a successful intercept.