A Mystery Missile Launch At Vandenberg Air Force Base

Bill Douglass	12:47 AM (40 minutes ago)
to Ann, Gary, John, Jeremiason, Steve, Steve, Brown, English, Johnson, Crawford, Cotner, Roach, Stokke, me

Dec 8 at 11:28 PM

From: Brian Webb - Vandenberg Launch Alert

Message body 

At about 6:10 PST this morning (14:10 UTC), I was driving north on U.S.

highway 101 in Camarillo, Calif. I looked to my left and was surprised to

see a glowing whitish cloud suspended against the deep twilight sky. The

cloud was in the south-southwest and consisted of a convoluted, milky-white

trail surrounded by a very thin, milky-white cloud.

I was certain it was a missile or rocket trail (probably from a solid
propellant rocket motor). It looked very similar to the launch aftermath
from a Minuteman III except that it was smaller (about 10 degrees across)
and it was in the wrong part of the sky for a Vandenberg AFB launch*.

A check with Vandenberg AFB revealed they had not launched anything.
However, this afternoon, the mystery was apparently solved when I received
the following statement from the Missile Defense Advocacy Association:

"Dear Members and Friends,

This morning off of San Nicolas Island off the coast of California, the
United States and Japan successfully tested the newest missile interceptor
in the world. The test opened the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor's new sensor
seeker in space for the first time, positioned the kill vehicle with its new
divert and altitude control rockets on a selected star, and proved out an
initial discrimination capability.  It is a significant accomplishment as
with this success the SM-3 Block IIA moves forward toward three intercept
tests over the next three years before its deployment on U.S. Baseline 9
Aegis BMD Ships and in the U.S. Aegis Ashore Site in Poland in 2018.