Raytheon Warhead Completes Test Flight, Pentagon Says

[unhappycamper]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/raytheon-warhead-completes-test-flight-pentagon-says.html

Raytheon Warhead Completes Test Flight, Pentagon Says
By Tony Capaccio - 2013-01-28T22:56:52Z

Raytheon Co. (RTN)’s latest interceptor warhead intended to protect the U.S. from intercontinental ballistic missiles successfully completed an initial flight test to determine whether a guidance flaw has been fixed, according to the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer.

The launch wasn’t designed to destroy a dummy target representing an enemy missile headed to the U.S. Instead, its goal was to verify that a remedy had been found for a classified flaw in the warhead’s guidance system discovered after such an intercept test failed in December 2010.

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The “kill vehicle” made by Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon is a 120-pound (54-kilogram) spacecraft about the length of a broomstick. It looks like a telescope mounted on a pack of propane cylinders. It is supposed to pick out a target amid decoys and debris and destroy it by smashing into it high speed. The warhead is launched off a missile made by Orbital Sciences Corp. (ORB)
Iran, North Korea

It’s part of a $35 billion system of ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California that hasn’t successfully destroyed a target since December 2008. The system managed by Chicago-based Boeing Co. (BA) is intended to protect the U.S., including Hawaii, from a small number of missiles fired from Iran or North Korea.