The test marked eight out of 10 times the Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy's Aegis sea-based missile defense system successfully intercepted its target. It was also the first time the system knocked out two targets at the same time.

Rear Adm. Alan B. Hicks, commander and program director of Aegis ballistic missile defense, said the crew executed the mission flawlessly.

"Every test we do, we take a different approach to further stress the ship and the system," Hicks said.

Video: Two Targets, Two Hits in Pacific Missile Test

This is to "give us confidence if we have to do this in the real world that we can do it," the admiral said.

A similar attempt to shoot down two targets at once failed in December when the first interceptor missile, designed to collide with the ballistic missile target, failed to launch. The military later determined the ballistic missile defense system had been incorrectly programmed.

The military is focusing its Aegis missile defense technology in the Pacific because of North Korea's development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

Tokyo has been pouring energy into missile defense ever since North Korea test-fired a long-range missile over northern Japan in 1998.

The scenario for Thursday's test had the USS Lake Erie learning that "hostile forces" were preparing to attack a friendly nation. The sailors were told to protect the allied country.

Then the scenario called for the Lake Erie itself to come under attack from a cruise missile fired by an enemy plane.

The Lake Erie fired both interceptor missiles from its on-board silos about one minute after the targets were launched.

The military fired the short-range ballistic missile target from the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. A U.S. Navy plane fired the cruise missile target used in the test.

Six warships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet are already equipped to track and shoot down ballistic missiles in this manner. Another 10 have the ability to track ballistic missiles and will be installed with the intercept technology by 2009.

Two Atlantic Fleet ships also will have both tracking and interception technology installed by early 2009.

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