The latest North Korean missile tests come at time when the U.S. defensive shield is weakened, missile-defense analysts say, by this summer’s loss of a pair of warships specially outfitted for ballistic-missile defense (BMD).
A Standard Missile (SM)-3 launches for a test from the USS Fitzgerald, a guided-missile destroyer equipped perform ballistic-missile defense that is now out of commission due to damage from a collision with a commercial ship. Credit: U.S. Navy
A Standard Missile (SM)-3 launches for a test from the USS Fitzgerald, a guided-missile destroyer equipped perform ballistic-missile defense that is now out of commission due to damage from a collision with a commercial ship. Credit: U.S. Navy
Those two guided-missile destroyers ‐ the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald ‐ collided with commercial ships, cutting down immediate regional U.S. maritime BMD capability by at least 14 percent.
The chinks in the ocean-going parts of the shield and the subsequent tests, the analysts say, show a need to develop and deploy more space-based sensors to guarantee full and continuous missile-defense coverage. A more robust space-based layer would also provide a more encompassing picture of threats than ship- or land-based radars.
The U.S. does possess a constellation of satellites to warn of missile launches, but what it lacks is enough satellites to provide adequate tracking and target discrimination for a missile traveling through space.