For safety reasons the Navy favors solid fuel rockets and the SM-5 is not exception. There hasn't been a failure in 40 years, so this is a mystery. These missiles are made by Raytheon and Raytheon will be doing most of the investigating of the causes.
Coming soon to a DDG near you, the SM-6 missile! I don't know what the improvements are. SM, by the way, stands for Standard Missile......imagination!
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