Kwajaleinatoll, in the Marshall Islands, bristles with radar, optical sensors, telemetry-receiving stations and other ballistic-missile testing equipment.
The land-based anti-missile rocket is to be launched from KwajaleinAtoll in the Pacific in hopes of destroying a modified Minuteman missile fired into space 20 minutes earlier from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 4, 300 miles (6, 880 kms) away in California.
The company's Pegasus XL rocket was flown to a launch altitude of about 39, 000 feet by a specially configured L-1011 "Stargazer" jetliner taking off from the KwajaleinAtoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, near the equator about halfway between Hawaii and Australia.