US Antimissile system is 15 for 15 in missile shoot down tests since 2005

The United States on Sunday conducted a "successful" a test of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, military officials said. According to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, a U.S. Air Force plane fired a ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean in Alaska and it was then intercepted by the system.

This test was the 15th success in 15 trials for THAAD since 2005, when they system began operational testing. Sunday's test comes weeks after the system's first-ever successful intercept test against an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) target.

Despite the proximity of these two recent THAAD tests to successive North Korean ballistic missile launches, the MDA had long accounted for this type of testing in the 2017 fiscal year. Additionally, THAAD has no capability against the missiles North Korea demonstrated on July 4 and July 28, both of which were intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.

The United States has deployed THAAD in South Korea, with the launchers arriving in the country in early May 2017, despite sharp opposition from China, which sees the X-band AN/TPY-2 radar associated with the system as a threat to its security.