An Aegis system successfully tracked a medium-range ballistic missile within Earth’s atmosphere Tuesday night. It was the first time the Aegis system was used to track a MRBM during its endo—or inside the atmosphere—phase of flight, according to a Lockheed Martin release. The Navy destroyer USS John Paul Jones, positioned west of Hawaii, detected and followed the missile with its AN/SPY-1 radar after it was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, according to a Missile Defense Agency release. MDA spokesman Chris Johnson told Air Force Magazine an intercept test using the Standard Missile-6 is scheduled for the first quarter of Fiscal 2017. The same radar tested earlier this week is used by the US ballistic missile defense system in Deveselu, Romania—dubbed an “Aegis Ashore” site—that went live last week.
NASA Boss: Race to Moon Has National Security Stakes
Sept. 15, 2026
NASA is pushing hard to get astronauts back to the moon by 2028—and the urgency is driven in no small part by the national security implications of doing so before China does, Administrator Jared Isaacman said Sept. 15.
