The U.S. Navy successfully launched a Standard Missile-3 — traditionally a ship-based, anti-ballistic missile — from an onshore launch site for the first time, military officials announced Wednesday (May 21). The successful missile launch late Tuesday (May 20) from a test site at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, represents an important milestone for the Navy, which will soon be charged with operating the first of two planned land-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) sites in Romania. "There are few differences between launching a Standard Missile-3 from a ship versus land-based systems," Wes Kremer, vice president of Air and Missile Defense Systems at Raytheon, the American defense contractor that manufactures SM-3 systems, said in a statement. The overlap between the sea-based and land-based systems will likely come as a relief to the sailors preparing to leave for the Romanian SM-3 site in 2015.
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