Test range impact statement released
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
LIHU'E, Kaua'i — The Army's Missile Defense Agency has issued a final environmental impact statement for its Ground-based Midcourse Defense Extended Test Range, which could involve rocket launches from Kaua'i's Pacific Missile Range Facility and berthing of a radar ship at Pearl Harbor.
The final environmental impact statement is available online. For printed copies, write to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, ATTN: SMDC-EN-V (Julia Hudson-Elliott), P.O. Box 1500, Huntsville, AL 35805; e-mail at gmdetreis@smdc.army.mil; or telephone (800) 823-8823.
The program is part of the Army's effort to develop an effective defense against incoming enemy rockets, striking them during the high-altitude flight period between the first few minutes after launch and the final 30 seconds of flight.
See the EIS
The test program aims to launch rockets and interceptor missiles from military bases on islands in the Pacific and around the North Pacific rim.
The testing program has five parts: ground-based interceptor rockets, X-band radar, upgraded early warning radar systems, a space-based detection system, and the complex system to run it all, which the Army calls its Battle Management Command, Control and Communications program.
As it does for the Navy's sea-based ballistic missile defense program, the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kaua'i, could be used to launch target missiles.
Targets also could be fired from mobile air or sea launch platforms, and from Alaska's Kodiak Launch Complex, California's Vandenberg Air Force Base and the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The radar vessel could be maintained from Pearl Harbor, but would be at sea during launch operations.
