Alaska’s state-owned Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island launched a secret U.S. Department of Defense missile last week during what observers believe was a hypersonic weapon being tested by the U.S. military.
The launch, which was not disclosed beforehand, took place about 10 p.m. Thursday night and was observed by people across the Kodiak Archipelago and was visible as far away as Seward.
Hypersonic missiles are those that can travel at least five times the speed of sound.
While long-range ballistic missiles — produced since World War II — frequently exceed that threshold, they cannot typically maneuver to avoid defenses and are locked on a fixed trajectory.
Modern hypersonic missiles, under development by several countries, would be able to avoid anti-missile systems being deployed by the United States, Israel and other countries.
KMXT-FM public radio and the Kodiak Daily Mirror first reported the launch, which was preceded by warnings to navigators and road closures on Kodiak, home to Alaska’s state-owned spaceport.
The spaceport is owned and operated by the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, a state-owned public corporation created in the late 1990s as part of legislative efforts to diversify Alaska’s economy.
Officials issued a written statement the day after saying that “a successful government rocket launch” took place Thursday night and that it was the 35th launch from the Kodiak spaceport since its creation in 1998.
“The residents of Kodiak should be proud of yesterday’s achievement and the significant contribution their community provides to the space legacy of the United States,” the statement said in part.
The corporation did not state the purpose of the launch.
Warning messages issued ahead of the launch are similar to those that observers saw in 2021, when the Department of Defense twice attempted and failed to launch a hypersonic missile from the Kodiak spaceport.
The corporation declined to answer questions asking about the launch on Monday.
John Oberst, president and CEO of the corporation, said by email, “The Alaska Aerospace Corporation considers transparency with Alaskans a priority. On occasion, there are some launches, like the one last week, that do not permit us this latitude. Thank you for your interest in our business.”
Research scientist Dr. Marco Langebroek, who tracks space launches from his home in the Netherlands, observed that the warnings to navigators match a planned three-stage missile test splashing down near the U.S. military’s rocket site at Kwajalein, Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean.
Four years ago, the U.S. Army published documents indicating that it intended to test a hypersonic missile from Kodiak. The information in those documents matches the warning messages published ahead of last week’s flight.
In 2021, a prior test launch from Kodiak failed due to problems with the booster rocket intended to lift the hypersonic weapon to a high altitude.
