MANA, Kaua'i — A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile tracked and smashed into a target missile about 30 miles high off Kaua'i Thursday night in the latest test of a mobile missile defense system to be used by the Army.

The 20-foot-long THAAD missile roared out of a truck-mounted launcher at the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at 8:45 p.m. in a burst of light and smoke, slicing across the island's western sky toward its target.

It was the second such exercise at the Kaua'i missile range, and the Missile Defense Agency said it successfully tested a series of objectives beyond slamming into a speeding rocket high in the Earth's atmosphere.

Among those objectives: The computers running the test were able to communicate with sister missile defense systems, including the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system and the U.S. Air Force Space-Based Infrared Sensors system. That kind of interoperability is one of the goals of the Missile Defense System, so that radar and other sensors from one battlefield system can assist in the guidance off other systems.

The target rocket, similar to the SCUD missiles used in the first Gulf War, was fired from a mobile launch platform off the coast of Kaua'i at 8:42 p.m. The THAAD interceptor took off three minutes later and hit the target two minutes after that.

The collision took place in what missile defense systems call the mid-endo-atmosphere, although they did not give an actual height. The term refers to the middle of Earth's roughly 60-mile-thick atmosphere.

THAAD, referred to as a hit-to-kill weapon, is designed to knock down an incoming missile by crashing into it. It is built to function both in the endo-atmospheric (inside the atmosphere) and exo-atmospheric (outside the atmosphere) areas, so it can be used against short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. It is a mobile, battlefield system like the older Patriot Air Defense System, but capable of protecting a larger area than the Patriot can.

"The system is proving its precision and lethal effect throughout our skies, considering THAAD's successes in both the high- and now mid-atmospheric proving grounds," said Tom McGrath, Lockheed Martin's THAAD program manager, in a released statement. "By linking with another element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System during this flight test, our nation's vision of a layered missile defense becomes one step closer to reality."

Lockheed Martin is the Missile Defense Agency's prime contract for the program.

It was the third successful hit-to-kill intercept for THAAD, and the 26th for the Ballistic Missile Defense System as a whole since 2001, said Lt. Gen. Henry "Trey" Obering, Missile Defense Agency director.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.