THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 10, 1995 TAG: 9502100530
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
The Navy plans the first at-sea test of its ``Star Wars'' missile defense system this morning, using a cruiser-borne rocket to attempt to knock down an attack missile off the Virginia and Carolina coasts.
The ``bold and daring experiment,'' as the admiral in charge calls it, begins with the pre-dawn launch of an Aries rocket from NASA's Wallops Island test facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. It should end less than 10 minutes later with a spectacular collision 85 miles above the Atlantic.
If implemented, the ``theatre missile defense'' program could by the end of the decade provide a shield over ships operating in unfriendly waters and protect Marine landings from ballistic missile attacks. Navy planners say that in the early stages of a war, the system also would free cargo planes and ships from responsibility for hauling land-based missile defenses to the battle zone.
Finally, for millions of Europeans and residents of the Middle East, the system might one day act as an umbrella from attacks like those Iraq made against Israel with its Scud missiles during the Persian Gulf War.
Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda, the chief of naval operations, has estimated that just a few properly equipped cruisers or destroyers could provide a missile shield over all of western Europe. With that in mind, he wants a commission studying the roles and missions of all the military services to carve out a role for the Navy in missile defense.
The system to be tested just after 6 this morning is one of two being developed by the Navy in a program that will cost $31 million during the coming fiscal year, said Rear Adm. Rodney Rempt, the service's director of theatre air defense. The Pentagon should be able to decide later this year whether to fully develop and deploy it.
In the test, a special projectile carried by a modified Terrier missile will be launched from the cruiser Richmond K. Turner off of North Carolina.
Developed by Hughes Missile Systems Co., the LEAP device (for Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile) carries its own infrared gui dance system and thruster rockets to help in the final seconds of its flight.
The Navy knows when the attack missile will be launched and will get tracking information directly from Wallops. It would have none of those advantages in operations against a foreign enemy, Rempt acknowledged.
The real focus of the test, he said, is the performance of the LEAP in space and the Navy's ability to handle things it can't control - the weather at sea, for example - while operating the system. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
ADRIANA LIBREROS/Staff
SOURCE: U.S. Navy
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB