WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A US attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile mimicking an attack from Iran failed after a malfunction in a radar built by Raytheon Co, the Defense Department said.

The botched $150 million test over the Pacific Ocean coincided with a Pentagon report that Iran had expanded its ballistic missile capabilities and posed a “significant” threat to US and allied forces in the Middle East region.

In the exercise on Sunday, both the target missile, fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, performed normally, the Missile Defense Agency said.

“However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected,” the agency said on its website. Officials will investigate the cause of the failure to intercept, it said.

The SBX radar is a major component of the ground-based midcourse defense, the sole US bulwark against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.

It was the first time the United States had tested its long-range defense against a simulated Iranian attack.

Previous drills have imitated a flight path from North Korea, another country in a standoff with the international community over its nuclear program.

A review of ballistic missile defense released by the Pentagon yesterday said Iran had developed and acquired ballistic missiles capable of striking targets from the Middle East to Eastern Europe.

To counter the Iranian threat, the United States has expanded land- and sea-based missile defense systems in and around the Gulf, according to US officials.

The deployments include expanded land-based Patriot defensive missile installations in Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as well as Navy ships with missile defense systems in and around the Mediterranean, they said.

Raytheon and Boeing Co, which manages the core ground-based midcourse defense, declined to comment on the test failure. Harris Corp, which provides systems engineering for the SBX radar, said its technology was not involved.