A successful test last week of the Aegis ballistic missile defense system and its Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) Block IV interceptor opens the door to new capabilities and missions for the venerable defensive system, showing clearly that it can take on shorter-range missiles in their final downward ballistic plunge toward a target.

Riki Ellison, the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance president, sees an expanded role for the Aegis/SM system, especially in countering rapidly escalating terrorist and rogue- state threats.

Separately, a high-ranking Navy officer said the Aegis/SM could become a land-based missile defense system, though currently there are no plans for that. At this point, the main land-based missile defense shield is the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, based in Alaska and California.

After the Aegis test, Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, the Aegis ballistic missile defense program director, held a teleconference with defense journalists

Asked whether the Aegis/SM system could work as a land-based system, in addition to the current sea-based system, Hicks said that would be possible. "You could do that," he said, but that "is not part of our program of record."

The Boeing Co. [BA] leads the GMD program.

Meanwhile, as for the Aegis/SM program, Lockheed Martin [LMT] makes the Aegis system, while Raytheon [RTN] makes the Standard Missile weapons family.

Even without a land-based version, Ellison sees an expanded role for the Aegis/SM.

"Successful demonstration of the SM-2 block IV missile gives the … Navy a missile defense interceptor that can defend ships at sea as well as near shore populations, ports and small areas from short range Scud-like ballistic missiles," Ellison said.

"This near term capability offers utility, mobility and presence with the … Navy especially in the areas of the Far East and the Persian Gulf where so many exposed cites and populations are vulnerable to short range ballistic missile threats."

That test last week makes clear that the Aegis/SM can take on assignments including "protection of the … Navy fleets, battle groups and aircraft carriers, [and it] is also much needed as the proliferation and sophistication of offensive ballistic missiles grows. This near term naval system can also be used if necessary to defend the cities and areas near the coastlines of the United States from asymmetrical container or barge ship threats with short range ballistic missiles."

Some military analysts say it would be a simple matter, if a terrorist group purchased a missile and nuclear weapon, to guide a ship off the U.S. coastline and fire the weapon from the ship to strike New York City or Washington, D.C. For some time after the strike, the U.S. military wouldn’t know from which nation the atomic device and missile originally came.

Hicks noted that this modification of the Aegis/SM to kill enemy missiles in their terminal, or final phase, of ballistic trajectory flight is only an interim step, with more modifications to come.

Ellison said the test shows it’s possible to teach an old dog, the SM-2 interceptor missile, new tricks, adding that many of the interceptors can be converted to add the new capability.

"The … Navy has around 100 SM-2 missiles in their inventory," Ellison noted. "These missiles were not designed or developed to do missile defense."

But the test last week shows that those old interceptors "can be and will be converted from their surface-to-air capability to a short range terminal missile defense capability."

It isn’t the first time that a sea-based ballistic missile defense system has been modified to take on a new challenge, Ellison noted.

"The … Navy has unequivocally proven its ability to adapt their sea-based missiles, as the historic satellite shoot down earlier this year displayed converting [an] SM- 3 missile to successfully intercept and destroy the incoming toxic satellite in space," he recalled.

In that mission, the Navy modified the Aegis/SM system to kill a dysfunctional U.S. intelligence satellite containing a tank full of toxic hydrazine propellant that otherwise might have harmed people if the out-of-control satellite had reentered and crashed down in a populated area.

"These 100 or so SM-2 Block IV missiles are a needed near term capability but they are not the long term solution," Ellison said.

The Test

In the test last week, the Aegis weapon control system guided two SM-2 Blk IV interceptors that obliterated a target missile in its terminal phase of flight, as the foreign- built unitary Scud-like target missile descended inside the atmosphere, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced.

This was a test of an interim, "gap-filler" sea-based capability to destroy a target missile in its last minutes of flight, Hicks said. Further modifications will be made in the system.

Firing two interceptors in this situation — aiming to kill a target missile in its last 70 to 50 seconds of flight — is "fleet doctrine" and standard procedure, Hicks indicated.

While he said MDA generally wants to kill an enemy missile as early in its trajectory flight as possible — "earlier is better" — so as to have multiple opportunities to annihilate the threat, having a terminal phase capability is useful because some shorter range missiles aren’t up high in their midcourse of flight for long, meaning the terminal phase kill capability is needed.

Attempting to take out an enemy missile in its terminal phase still is difficult, because "it is your last engagement opportunity" before the enemy weapon slams into its target, he noted.

The test was conducted at the Pacific Missile Range Facility off Hawaii with interceptors fired from the USS Lake Erie (CG 70), a Navy ballistic missile defense cruiser.

In the test, at 8:13 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time (2:13 p.m. ET), a short range target was launched from a mobile launch platform 300 miles west of the Pacific Missile Range Facility.

Approximately four minutes later, the Lake Erie crew fired two SM-2 Blk IV missiles, and within a minute or two the SM-2s intercepted the target inside the atmosphere, about 12 miles above the Pacific Ocean and about 100 miles west-northwest of Kauai. .

Flight Test Maritime-14 (FTM-14) test objectives included evaluation of: the BMDS ability to intercept and kill a short range ballistic missile target with the Aegis BMD, modified with the terminal mission capability; the modified SM-2 Blk IV missile using SPY-1 cue; and system-level integration of the BMDS.

FTM-14 marked the 14th overall successful intercept in 16 attempts for the Aegis BMD program and the second successful intercept of a terminal phase target by a modified Standard Missile-2 Block IV interceptor.

This is the 35th successful terminal and midcourse defense intercept in 43 tests since 2001, MDA stated.

Aegis BMD is the sea-based mid-course component of the MDA Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) and is designed to intercept and destroy short to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats.

In 2006, the Aegis/SM role was expanded to include a sea-based terminal defense effort, using a modified version of the SM-2 Blk IV.

Unlike other missile defense technologies now deployed or in development, the SM-2 Blk IV does not use "hit to kill" technology (directly colliding with the target) to destroy the target missile. Rather, it uses a blast fragmentation device that explodes in direct proximity to the target to complete the intercept and destroy the target.

MDA and the Navy cooperatively manage the Aegis BMD program. Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors of Moorestown, N.J., is the combat system engineering agent and prime contractor for the Aegis BMD Weapon System and Vertical Launch System installed in Aegis equipped cruisers and destroyers.

Raytheon Missile Systems of Tucson, Ariz., is the prime contractor for the SM-2 and SM-3 missile and all previous variants of Standard Missile.

The SM-2 program is managed by the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C.

The next test of this missile defense system will be later this year in the Pacific range, Hicks said.

And the next test involving the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) and the Aegis system will be off a Japanese ship late this year, with another test off a U.S. Navy ship early next year, Hicks indicated.

The SM-2 BlkIV was chosen for the test last week because it could be modified quickly, he said, "to go after that shorter-range threat." This system will complement the SM-3 and its ability to handle longer-range assignments outside the atmosphere, in space.