SOONER, PLEASE: Pentagon Preps to Destroy Enemy ICBMs in 2030.

The Missile Defense Agency’s first-ever successful intercept of an ICBM target using a Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, using the kinetic force of an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) to destroy the target, is paving the way toward advanced future kill vehicles able to discern and attack multiple approaching threats, industry and Pentagon officials said.

During the test, an ICBM-class target was launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, a Missile Defense Agency statement said.

“Multiple sensors provided target acquisition and tracking data to the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communication (C2BMC) system,” the statement added.

The intercept, taking place over the Pacific Ocean, used X-band radar to track the target for using a fire control solution to destroy the ICBM.

All of this is seen by developers as a crucial step toward a new future system, called Multi-Object Kill Vehicle, or MOKV. It is designed to release from a Ground Based Interceptor and destroy approaching Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs — and also take out decoys traveling alongside the incoming missile threat.

Better still to destroy missiles in their vulnerable boost phase — but that’s also trickier still.