Reuters: Pentagon Scrubs Missile-Defense Flight Test
Weather again scrubbed what would have been the first missile-defense shield test in two years. Rain over the Kwajalein atoll forced the Missile Defense Agency to call the test off. President Bush said in 2002 that he wanted to have at least a rudimentary missile defense up and running by end of 2004, but the $10 billion a year project will likely slip. Boeing runs most of the project. Northrop Grumman makes the command and control parts, and Lockheed Martin makes a booster rocket. This test was to send a kill vehicle hurtling on a new booster built by Orbital Sciences. The target missile was to be fired from Kodiak, Alaska.