A Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyer failed to shoot down a mock ballistic missile in space Wednesday, Japanese Defense Ministry officials said Thursday.

The Aegis destroyer Choukai fired with a U.S.-developed interceptor over the island of Kauai, Hawaii, but the Standard Missile-3 interceptor lost track of the target seconds before it was supposed to hit it, the officials said.

It is not immediately known what will be done to the launched interceptor and debris that may have resulted from it, they added.

The missile test followed Japan's first test of the ship-to- space missile by another Aegis destroyer of the MSDF, the Kongou, also over Hawaii, in December last year.

The test, which cost some 6 billion yen of the Defense Ministry of Japan, came after the Choukai, commissioned in 1998, underwent a refit to enable it to launch the SM-3 missile.

Japan has been eager to develop a missile shield with the help of the United States particularly since the August 1998 launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea that flew over the Japanese territory before falling into the Pacific off the coast of Japan.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2008)