Earlier this month, North Korea fired off a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles as part of an ongoing demonstration of its military might. While the U.S. military did not move to intercept any of those missiles, it just did the next-best thing: It shot down a target that simulated a North Korean missile.

In a test event dubbed "Stellar Avenger," the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense-equipped destroyer USS Hopper successfully tracked and engaged an Aegis Readiness Assessment Vehicle (ARAV) after the target missile was launched from the Pacific Test Range Facility on Barking Sands, Kauai.

In a statement, Riki Ellison, the plugged-in chief of the Missile Defense Advocacy Association, said the ARAV "represented a ballistic missile similar in speed, acceleration and burn of the same short range missiles fired by North Korea on July 2nd and 4th of this year."

Equally important, this was an "ascent phase" shoot-down: According to a Missile Defense Agency news release, the interceptor struck the target 1oo miles above the Pacific Ocean. By Ellison's count, this is only the second ascent-phase intercept in 23 at-sea firings by the Aegis missile defense system.

As Axe has noted here before, the sea-based combination of the missile-spotting Aegis radar system and the Standard Missile-3 interceptor has the best test record of any U.S. missile defense system, and this latest test marks the 19th successful intercept in 23 practice intercepts. Adding to that, this exercise tested a recent upgrade, and the USS Lake Erie will fire an upgraded SM-3 using this advanced weapon system sometime late next year.

[PHOTO: MDA]

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