This ain’t your father’s Star Wars.
Missile Defense Agency Director Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly announced that a test of the Multiple Kill Vehicle-L (MKV-L) was conducted Tuesday, Dec. 2 at the National Hover Test Facility at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Preliminary indications are that planned test objectives were achieved.
Objectives of the test included having the MKV-L hover under its own power and prove its capability to recognize and track a surrogate target in a flight environment. During the test, the MKV-L’s propulsion system demonstrated maneuverability while tracking a target. The MKV-L transmitted video and flight telemetry to the ground.
The MKV-L mission is to destroy medium through intercontinental-range ballistic missiles equipped with multiple warheads or countermeasures by using a single interceptor missile. During an actual hostile ballistic missile attack, the carrier vehicle with its cargo of small kill vehicles will maneuver into the path of an enemy missile. Using tracking data from the Ballistic Missile Defense System and its own seeker, the carrier vehicle will dispense and guide the kill vehicles to destroy any warheads or countermeasures.
Sorry about comments being off. Sometimes you post something and some settings are set for no apparent reason.
Perhaps if the MKV succeeded in it’s test mission the engineers weren’t around by the end of the test to cheer?
But Obewan, how am I supposed to see the probe with my blast shield down?
This is nearly 20 yr old technology perfected in the late 80s. Looks like nothing very new, only 20 yrs of continuous govt funding…
Fantastic!!!! Put one on the streets of east oakland.
Pretty cool stuff. Need to deploy a couple of these to Congress.
It looks fake to me. Also, since when was a gun considered an efficient thrust mechanism? Very strange.
Always loved hi-tech milporn, However, I’ve read a very long technical analysis (that I can’t find right now) that proves to my satisfaction that ABM defenses are always at a financial and numeric disadvantage to the attacker’s incoming MIRVs and decoys. It’s a fundamentally and fatally flawed concept.
Plus, even though ABMs are ostensibly defensive, in fact they can allow an aggressor to act with _imagined_ impunity, thereby making catastrophic conflicts more likely, not less.
# 8 Winston said, “Plus, even though ABMs are ostensibly defensive, in fact they can allow an aggressor to act with _imagined_ impunity, thereby making catastrophic conflicts more likely, not less.”
LOL. Your 1st paragraph invalidates the second one. Too funny.
I don’t understand how a hovering device is useful for shooting down missiles coming at mach-whatever. What am I missing here?
Anyone remember “The Last Starfighter”?
# 12 GetSmart said, “The North Koreans might even get through if they used an EMP warhead to blind the radars first.”
LOL!
How many do you think they broke before they came up with that net cage?
The future is a lot louder than in the movies.
#11, don’t forget its made for space where their is no gravity or air resistance; those rockets had no trouble lifting the whole unit right of the ground in a pinch.. in space, it would probably be able to accelerate it several mach whatever in the blink of an eye in any direction.
Not such a bad idea, full scale nuclear war is still a threat much more probable and tangible than a large meteorite impact. There are still massive arsenals of nuclear weapons out there. Soviet Union’s gone, but the weapons are still there and even though Russia has had problems financing their high tech military recent events have me thinking they’re coming back. Here in Europe Russia’s been very aggressive buying into big energy interests, building pipelines, etc… to sell their huge oil and natural gas resource, these revenues could go a long way for recovering past levels. Let’s not forget China either. The sooner there’s a decent defense, the sooner the madness of Mutual Assured Destruction will end.
Then people perfect the bending light stuff and we have stealth missles that this thing cannot fight.
You make a weapon, I make a defense, you make a weapon that negates that defense, I make a defense for that, you make a weapon that negates that rinse and repeat.
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“This ain’t your father’s Star Wars.” But that’s exactly what it is. And this video they released ought the be good for another year’s worth or research appropriations. For how many decades are they going to keep trying to perfect this half-baked idea of President Ronnie’s dementia? And should they actually pull it off, for real (and not just in these scripted tests), what then? Rearm to the teeth, and negate all the arms treaties, just because we can. Oh I’m sure Raytheon and chums are salivating over the prospect, right now.
Ya know, war generally end only when enough people on one side (or both) die. And the cost in human life brings those who started it, back to their senses. But if the only consequence is a super polluted upper atmosphere (thanks to SID). Then a future war might not end until every living thing is smothered out. Will these defense contractor also have a solution to the damage to the environment, their toys will cause? I’m sure for a trillion dollars more, they’ll look into it.
What with our TOTALLY NON-EXISTANT PORT SECURITY, any “enemy” might already have warheads installed in any of our tall office buildings in many of our cities !!! (Might want to investigate any “Eurasian Trading Companies” as fronts !!!) So, ABM or MKV or any of those other Pentagon FANTASIES WON’T EVEN COME INTO PLAY !!!
AN ATTACK OF THIS KIND WILL BE ***OVER BEFORE WE KNEW WHAT HIT US*** and the DISARRAY WILL BE TOTAL – THINK KATRINA, BUT IN EVERY MAJOR CITY !!!
The only solution is to DISMANTLE THE WEAPONS AND WORK FOR PEACE !!!
# 18 GetSmart said, “Fortunately, North Korea doesn’t have the expertise to build a high yield nuke (Megaton class blast) of that sort.”
Hence, my post. Also, NK can’t reach most of the US with anything.