Anchorage Daily News
(Published: November 10, 2001) Test rocket is destroyed less than a minute after takeoff
KODIAK: Launch was supposed to be a trial for the nation's missile defense system sensors.
By Wesley Loy
A rocket designed to simulate an enemy ballistic missile aimed at the West Coast had to be destroyed shortly after takeoff Friday morning from the state-owned Kodiak Launch Complex.
The 38-foot Strategic Target System (STARS) rocket was less than a minute into its flight when range safety officials blew it up, said Pat Ladner, executive director of the Alaska Aerospace Development Corp.
The pieces fell harmlessly into the North Pacific about 65 miles south of Kodiak Island, he said, though a military official in Washington, D.C., said the pieces were spread over an area 17 to 45 miles from the island. Data transmission between the rocket and range safety officials was lost, meaning they couldn't track it, Ladner said. "It shows that the system works," he said. "The rules say if you can't keep track of the rocket then you destroy it." Ladner said he had "no idea" what the destroyed rocket was worth.
It took off shortly after 9 a.m. The launch was part of an Army program to test the nation's missile defense system sensors. The rocket was to fly along the West Coast and then into the ocean southwest of California.
The three-stage, solid-fuel rocket, essentially a modified Polaris missile, featured a dummy warhead and space decoys to test California-based radar, said Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the U.S. missile defense program in Washington, D.C.
The launch was the first in a planned series of up to four STARS launches from Kodiak, state officials have said. Kauai, Hawaii, was also to host such launches.
It was the first time a rocket used in testing missile defenses had to be destroyed after launch, Lehner said.
Despite the communications breakdown, the rocket remained on course until it was destroyed, he said, adding a board will be convened to investigate.
It was also the first rocket malfunction at the $40 million Kodiak range, built on remote Narrow Cape on the northeast shoulder of Kodiak Island beginning in 1998 as a spaceport for commercial or government launches. The STARS launch was the latest in about a half-dozen missions from Kodiak since the range opened.
All have had military connections.
On Sept. 29, the range successfully launched a 62-foot Lockheed Martin Athena I rocket carrying four small military and educational satellites for NASA. That marked the first and only Alaska launch so far to put an object into orbit around Earth. All the other Kodiak launches have been suborbital.
In recent months, the Kodiak range, along with Fort Greely in the Interior, have emerged as possible sites for testing rockets that could intercept and destroy incoming enemy missiles.
The Coast Guard had been broadcasting a notice to mariners in the area, warning vessels to stay out of the launch clearance area due to possible falling debris between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. beginning Friday through Nov. 21, the launch window, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Douglas Green.
Reporter Wesley Loy can be reached at wloy@adn.com or 907 257-4590.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
