WASHINGTON -- A U.S. interceptor failed to shoot down a target
missile in a Jan. 18 test by 100 feet.
U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen's disclosure was the first time a
defense official said how close the two rockets were in the failed test. The
two rockets were 6,900 kilometers [4,300 miles] apart.
"The technology is certainly proving to be on the right track," Cohen
said. "The miss that was involved was not by much, within about 100 feet,
perhaps the distance between home plate and second base. So it is not
much of a miss."
The Pentagon cited the failure of infrared sensors that helped the
intercept missile home in on the target missile. Defense officials said the
sensors malfunctioned during the last six seconds of flight.
"It was a mechanical engineering type of problem rather than a science
one," Cohen said. "The science is there, and I believe that the problems
that accounted for the near miss will be corrected in the future."
The next missile test is expected in April. By June, President Bill
Clinton could decide on development of what could amount to an $18 billion
system.
Officials said by 2005 the United States could complete a system ready
for initial deployment of 100 interceptors.
In an unrelated development, the National Security Agency has confirmed
a "serious computer problem" that affected its ability to process
intelligence information. The agency said the outage began at 7 p.m. Monday
and ended on Thursday.
ABC News termed the outage as the biggest failure of the NSA's computer
system. The agency specializes in electronic intelligence gathering through
satellites, telephone intercepts and other methods.
"This problem, which was contained to the NSA headquarters complex at
Fort Meade, Md., did not affect intelligence collection, but did affect the
processing of intelligence information," the NSA said on late Saturday. "NSA
systems were impacted for 72 hours."
NSA sources said the computer outage was not connected to the millennium
bug.
