A Terrier Oriole projectile was shot down by NATO warships off the coast of Scotland.

Terrier Oriole is an unguided two-stage rocket system which is used to test ballistic missile defence systems, under the name ARAV-B. The rocket was launched from a Scottish island and has been detected and destroyed by NATO warships.

Exercise Formidable Shield brought together eight NATO countries in the Outer Hebrides to test integrated air and missile defence capabilities through a series of live missile firings and demonstrations.

The exercise culminated with the launch of a Terrier Oriole ballistic missile target to simulate a medium-range ballistic missile, marking the largest and highest object launched into space from UK soil reaching an altitude of 320kms. To enable this firing to be conducted safely, QinetiQ put in place an air exclusion zone of 1.1m sq kms, approximately twice the size of Spain.

The United Kingdom hosted the event at its Hebrides Missile Test Range in Scotland.

During the demonstration, the vessels defended against simultaneous anti-ship and ballistic missile threats originating from multiple locations. The countries had to pass information over a total of 5.7 million square miles using a variety of platforms from different countries to identify, track and engage the threats.

During ex #FormidableShield USS Donald Cook fired a Standard Missile-3 Block IB and shot down a ballistic missile target yesterday pic.twitter.com/dx1VcC6Ofl — NavyLookout (@NavyLookout) October 16, 2017

The fleet fired more than 26 missiles, including the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile and the SM-3 in the US inventory and the Aster-30 missile used by France, Italy and the United Kingdom.