WATCH: ICBM Intercept System shoot down a long-range ballistic missile

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force’s 30th Space Wing, the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, and U.S. Northern Command, successfully intercepts an intercontinental ballistic missile target during a test of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense element of the nation’s ballistic missile defense system.

The missile defense test shot — often described as “hitting a bullet with a bullet” — was “an incredible accomplishment for the GMD system and a critical milestone for this program,” Navy Vice Adm. Jim Syring, head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, said in a statement. “This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.”