The scheduled flight test was therefore not completed and deemed a "no" test, he said, adding an investigation would now try to "determine the cause of the malfunction."

The failure to complete the test comes as the United States is negotiating to install missile interceptors and a radar in Poland and the Czech Republic despite vehement opposition from Moscow.

The agency had hoped to test the missile defense system by shooting down a long-range test missile launched from the Kodiak complex in Alaska with interceptors fired from the Vandenberg Air Force base in California.

But Obering said of the incomplete mission that there was "always a risk of this occurrence since we are flying old intercontinental ballistic missile motors in our targets.

"We have initiated a target modernization program within our existing budget, which should mitigate these risks for the future," he said, adding the agency would try to repeat the test later this summer.

It was the second time that US officials had tested the system with all its operational components -- a complex network of radars, command centers and an interceptor missile topped with a "kill vehicle."

If it had been successful the kill vehicle would have collided at high speed with the mock warhead in space over the Pacific, pulverizing it.

"It's a continuing process of testing under what we call operationally realistic conditions," Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said Thursday ahead of the test.

"We have an operationally configured interceptor, launched from an operational site, using operational crews, with an operational kill vehicles," he said.

Lehner said Friday's attempt was essentially to repeat a test carried out in September, but the program has a history of hits, misses and technical glitches.

Critics of the shield argue that the system is incapable of distinguishing a warhead from even simple decoys in space.

"Coming in the midst of a congressional funding debate, a hit or miss is likely to be taken as a sign of the health of the program," said David Wright, with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"But the test will tell little or nothing about whether the system will be able to intercept attacking warheads," he said.

Pentagon officials say the system is designed to intercept a limited nuclear attack by a rogue state, and is not intended as defense against larger, more sophisticated Russian or Chinese arsenals.

earlier related report
US: North Korea missile test is 'routine'
Washington (AFP) May 25 - The White House on Friday played down North Korea's first missile tests in almost a year, calling them a "routine exercise" amid a continuing logjam in implementing a nuclear disarmament deal. "It appears to be a routine exercise," said US national security council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

The State Department also said the tests would not affect ongoing international talks aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear program.

"As far as I know, it doesn't have any particular implication to the six-party talks," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.

Pyongyang agreed at the talks in February, involving China, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas and the United States, to scrap its nuclear programs, with the shutdown of its Yongbyon reactor to be the first step.

But it made the shutdown conditional on the settlement of a dispute over accounts totalling 25 million dollars which have been frozen at the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia since 2005 under US money-laundering and counterfeiting sanctions.

US and other negotiators are struggling to settle the row over the funds which is blocking any start to the North's promised nuclear disarmament.

"This is a fairly routine test of some short range missiles," Casey said of Friday's test.

"That is something that the North Koreans have done before, so I don't think it is an issue that would appear to affect the moratorium that the North Koreans imposed on long-range missile tests some time ago."

earlier related report
SKorea launches Aegis destroyer to combat 'arms race'
Seoul (AFP) May 25 - South Korea on Friday launched its first Aegis destroyer equipped with advanced air and sea weaponry, on the same day that North Korea test-fired several missiles.

President Roh Moo-Hyun, speaking at the launch of the one-billion-dollar 7,600-tonne KDX-III destroyer, said South Korea must be mindful of what he called a regional arms race.

"The ship, armed with (a) state-of-the-art defence system and combat capability, is one of the world's best destroyers," Roh told a ceremony at the Ulsan dockyard of Hyundai Heavy Industries, which built the ship.

"We have to secure our ability to defend ourselves not only in terms of naval power but in all kinds of combat capabilities," he said, adding South Korea will push on with a programme to create an ocean-going navy.

Roh said he had considered whether such an expensive ship, the first of three, is really needed. "However, we cannot sit idle in the face of a continuing arms race in the Northeast Asian region," he said.

He did not specify countries. A navy spokesman said this month the Aegis destroyer was an attempt to keep up with the naval powers of Japan and China.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service and Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North test-fired several short-range missiles Friday as part of what is thought to be routine military training.

"The firing of short-range missiles is believed to be part of usual military training that the North has been carrying out in the West Sea and the East Sea (Sea of Japan)," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

South Korea has clashed in the past with North Korea around their contested maritime border in the Yellow Sea. The North this week accused the South of sending warships to violate its territorial waters.

Six South Koreans were killed in June 2002 in clashes in the area. In June 1999 a battle killed dozens of North Korean sailors.

South Korea is the fifth country to have the Aegis integrated weapons control system following the United States, Japan, Spain and Norway, the navy said.

The destroyer is named the King Sejong after the monarch who helped create the Korean alphabet in the 15th century.

"The King Sejong has integrated capabilities in broad-range air defence, support for ground operations, automatic tracking and destruction of enemy aircraft and guided and ballistic missiles," the navy said in a statement.

"The new destroyer is expected to greatly boost combat capabilities."

A second Aegis destroyer will be launched in 2010, and the third in 2012.

The Aegis system, built by US firm Lockheed Martin, allows a ship to combat multiple surface, underwater and aerial threats.

The King Sejong is also equipped with locally developed ship-to-ship missiles and torpedoes as well as various ship-to-air missiles and ship-to-surface cruise missiles.

Stealth technology has also been used, making radar detection harder. The ship will be deployed operationally in 2009.

South Korea has also teamed up with Germany to build 1,800-tonne modern submarines. A second such submarine will be launched early next month.

earlier related report
Seoul silent on further NKorea missile tests
Seoul (AFP) May 27 - South Korea's military and intelligence agencies refused to comment Sunday on a report that North Korea may be planning another missile test.

Quoting unnamed intelligence sources, Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported Saturday that the North test-fired only one short-range missile Friday off its east coast on Friday and may follow up from its west.

First indications Friday had been that the reclusive communist nation fired several missiles from both the west and east.

Yonhap said the North did not proceed with a test on the west coast because of the presence of fishing vessels, but a ban on sailing in the area remained in force and could indicate another try.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS), Seoul's main spy agency, declined to comment on the report Sunday. So did the defence ministry.

"All we can say is that the firing is part of the military training that North Korea has been annually carrying out in the West Sea (Yellow Sea) and the East Sea (Sea of Japan)," an NIS spokesman told AFP on Sunday.

"We cannot comment on other details, all confidential."

"We have nothing more to confirm," a defence ministry spokesman said.

Friday's missile test was the first in almost a year. Seoul confirmed the short-range launch but did not say how many had been fired.

Seoul and Washington downplayed it as a "routine exercise" while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said it posed "no grave problem" for Japan.

However, it was at a sensitive time as US and other negotiators struggle to settle a banking row which is blocking a start to the North's promised nuclear disarmament.

Seoul-based JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said that Friday's test launch was of a land-to-ship missile known as Silkworm or HY-2, with a range of 100 kilometres (62 miles).

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