People come to visit the beautiful island of Kauai for vacations from all over the world. They come to bask in the sunshine, frolic in the warm ocean waters, view the breathtaking sunsets and also to see the whales. It is the whales and the potential damage the sonar testing can do them that is the reason for a large debate currently being waged on Kauai.

The U.S. Navy has successfully completed their test, which was temporarily delayed Thursday, off the island of Kauai, due to a boat being “in the danger zone” . On Friday the Navy was able to complete the test in spite of still being delayed for a few hours due to ships once again in “the danger zone”. The ships were removed and the test was finished.

The test was conducted at 4:40 p.m. and had a interceptor missile launched from a ship out at sea, the USS Decatur, colliding with a separating target missile lauched from land at the Pacific Missile Range Facility. It was the ninth successful intercep in 11 tests of the Aegis Missile Defense System. It took 4 minutes for the impacting missile to track the target and destroy it.

The Kauai Naval Base is located on the west side of the island far away from the vacation resorts located on the north, east and south sides. It is on an incredibly long and vacant beach in a very remote area. It is from here that many of the missile tests are conducted.

Today they had planned a ballistic missile test but had to postpone it because a vessel ventured into the safety area. (Not a good place to be!) A ballistic missile follows a sub-orbital ballistic flight path with the objective of delivering a warhead to a predetermined target, and the last place you would want to be is between a ballistic missile and its target!

Who says destroying two targets at one time is difficult? The Navy made it look easy with their new Aegis defense system as they completed another successful test off the island of Kauai.

This test was a duplication of a failed test performed last December. There has been ten missile tests performed off Kauai, eight have succeeded with only two failures.

What they were up against was not one but two hostile forces that were preparing to attack a friendly nation. The forces aboard the USS Lake Erie performed admirably and protected their country by shooting down a cruise missile fired from an enemy plane toward the ship, while at the same time shooting down a ballistic missile fired from the Pacific Missile Range on Kauai.

Aegis means shield, and the aptly named Navy’s latest surface combat system does just that. It is a system capable of engaging in simultaneous warfare on several fronts: air, surface, sub-surface and strike – for example shooting down two missiles, fired from different locations, at the same time. Tomorrow, in an attempt to recreate a failed test performed last December, the Navy will again test its sea-based Aegis system off the island of Kauai, on the west side.

This will be the tenth such test performed on Aegis off Kauai. Seven of the previous nine attempts have proven successful. The test last December failed when the interceptor missiles aboard USS Lake Erie proved faulty and the missiles refused to launch.

The Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C., has awarded a contract for system upgrades at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.

The facility at Barking Sands, which controls and tracks missile launches and helps train bomber pilots, is due for engineering and technical support related to data distribution system and range mission tool software upgrades to its tactical display framework.

Raytheon Solipsys Corp. of Laurel, Md., outside the nation’s capital, has won the $28.1 million contract. The work will be performed at Barking Sands and the performance period runs from this month through September 2010.