The United States shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile in space from a warship at sea for the first time ever in a successful demonstration early Tuesday morning, the Missile Defense Agency announced in a news release.

What are the details?
The ICBM was launched into space at approximately 12:50 a.m. EST from the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, located on the Marshall Islands. Shortly after, the missile was "intercepted and destroyed" as it traveled above the broad ocean area northeast of Hawaii.

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That is no easy task.

Best place to shoot one down is space. Once the MIRV's are released it's a moot point trying to shoot anything down.

we have a great military!

U.S.A.

Well that makes me feel better.

Glad I could help

That should freak out the Russians and Chinese.

ICBMs are so last century....the tech being worked now by both sides is almost unimaginable, certainly on par for what an ICBM was in the early 70's-80's, yet at the same time the bureaucratic red tape involved with the high level decision making is almost as laughably in efficient it is amazing anything actually gets done.

Imagine a autonomous fleet of crafts able to be controlled via AI and human interface inputs that can coordinate with other human operated crafts that fulfill a mission. In medicine we have physician extenders, PAs and nurse practitioners. Think of these things as mission extenders. That's just the beginning.

I remember the Navy a few years ago shooting down a satellite.

This is October 2018 so somebody share what the difference is please?

H E Double Hockeysticks YES!!!!

And maybe rocket man.

That was a medium range missile. The recent one was an ICBM.

Huge difference.

Biden will share the technology with them, as did Clinton.

Got it

Here’s a fun info graphic to explain our intercept capabilities.