6 US Missile Defense Test Hits and a Miss

The U.S. carried out a successful missile defense test off the Hawaiian coast on Wednesday morning in the midst of heightened tensions with North Korea, but an official said the test was in the planning for "a long time," CNN reported.

The Standard Missle-6 intercepted another missile fired by the USS John Paul Jones at sea, according the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, per CNN. It was the second missile test conducted by the U.S. military this month.

Here’s how six U.S. missile tests fared in the past few months.

1. Hawaii missile test on Monday: The latest U.S. test came days after North Korea fired a Hwasong-12 missile over Japan, an ally of the United States. The missile defense agency director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves said the test was a "key milestone" in enhancing the country's ballistic defense technologies, CNN noted.

2. Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, Aug. 2: A Minuteman III missile was successfully fired from the California air base about 2:07 a.m. and traveled 4,200 miles to a test range near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the U.S. Air Force said then, per the Los Angeles Times.

3. Kodiak, Alaska, July 30: A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system based in Alaska shot down a medium-range ballistic missile launched from the air by a U.S. Air Force C-17 over the Pacific Ocean, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

4. Kodiak, Alaska, July 11: THAAD located at the Pacific Spaceport Complex detected, tracked, and intercepted a ballistic missile fired north of Hawaii from an Air Force C-17.

5. USS John Paul Jones, June 21: The Aegis Baseline weapons system onboard the ship detected and tracked a medium-range ballistic missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range in Kauai, Hawaii. The ship fired an SM-3 block IIA guided missile but it did not intercept the target.

6. Vandenberg Air Force Base, May 30: The successful interception of a ballistic missile was the first live-fire test against an ICBM-class target from a ground-based source. A missile was launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and it was picked up by the ground-based system and fired an intercepting missile from the California base and destroyed the target missile.

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