I think they did have a partial failure due to the lack of tech back then, but if you notice they have attached lasers to 747s now... Maybe it's
easier to shoot it down with something in the atmosphere vs. in orbit?
I wouldn't doubt though that they can shoot a missle down from space now and they probably either won't tell us they can flat out or they will say
they used one of these planes to shoot it down. The latter could throw off the rest of the world's country's and they would try to emulate the
airplane tech we developed while keeping the satellite strategy a secret weapon.


