AEGIS Baseline 9 Destroyer Scores Historic Flight Test Mission

By Program Executive Officer Integrated Warfare Systems Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Sailors aboard guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) in partnership with U.S. Pacific Command and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) successfully executed Flight Test Standard Missile-25 (FTM-25), announced Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS), Nov. 20.

This was the first live-fire event in the integrated air and missile defense radar priority mode to engage a ballistic missile target and a raid of cruise missile targets with its AEGIS Combat System.

John Paul Jones engaged three successful near-simultaneous target shots over the Pacific Ocean by the Aegis Baseline 9.C1 (BMD 5.0 Capability Upgrade) Weapon System. One short-range ballistic missile target was intercepted by a Standard Missile-3 Block IB guided missile, while two low-flying cruise missile targets were engaged by Standard Missile-2 Block IIIA guided missiles.

"The capability that the USS John Paul Jones demonstrated during FTM-25 is the culmination of years of tough engineering across the Navy's technical community and our industry partners," said Rear Adm. Jon A. Hill, PEO IWS. "The technology displayed during FTM-25 will be a critical addition to the fleet and their ability to stay prepared."

PEO IWS spearheaded the FTM-25 as part of a developmental test/operational test sequence of events. Other test participants included discriminating sensors flown on two MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles and sensor systems ashore, command and control, battle management and Communications (C2BMC) Enterprise Sensors Lab, C2BMC Experimentation Lab, and the AEGIS Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex located at the Pacific Missile Range Facility.

Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems manages surface ship and submarine combat technologies and systems and coordinates Navy enterprise solutions across ship platforms.