Key Missile Defense Flight Tests Again Delayed, Deployment Planned for Before Intercept Test

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency yesterday again delayed the next flight test of the ground-based long-range missile defense system, from Aug. 18-23 until mid-September, as it prepares to deploy components of the system for the first time, a senior U.S. military official said (see related GSN story, today).

The delay of Integrated Flight Test-13C of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, the fourth rescheduling disclosed this year, reduces to about two weeks the time during which an analysis of that test could be conducted prior to the scheduled Oct. 1 deployment date set last year by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see GSN, Aug. 12).

It also pushes back the subsequent test, IFT-14, which would be the first intercept test of the GMD system using a new, much faster rocket booster, until mid-November to mid-December, according to GMD Program Director Maj. Gen. John Holly, who announced the delay while speaking at an annual Army Space and Missile Defense Command conference here.

“We’ve nominally got about a 60-day to 90-day turnaround time between flight test missions,” he said, citing time needed for preparing a missile-launched target and conducting pre-mission test activities and rehearsals.

“I’d hoped I was not going to be standing up here today. My plan was to be at Kwajelein Atoll instead of talking to you,” Holly said, referring to the site from which the test interceptor is launched in the Pacific.

Experts say that incorporating the new, faster booster could challenge the system by increasing the closing speed between the missile interceptor and the target, which gives the system less time to try to hit the target (see GSN, July 2).

Holly said the delay of IFT-13C was caused by “a telemetry problem in the flight computer,” referring to the system’s flight data computer, which he said would be replaced. 

He said that during a ground test the system failed to transmit 200 milliseconds of data on system performance.

“200 milliseconds is a fair amount of data,” he said, adding such test data is essential for anchoring to reality models and simulations of how the missile defense system would work.

“We’ll fly this, and it should work out,” he said.

Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said the flight data computer is used for testing purposes, to tell the people on the ground how the interceptor is performing by transmitting various pieces of data.

The test was delayed earlier this year for various reasons from March to June, then from June until late July, then from late July until mid-August, according to Lehner.

Pentagon spokespeople have refused to confirm the scheduled Oct. 1 deployment date, reported by Global Security Newswire last month, which coincides with the start of the next fiscal year and is about a month before the presidential election (see GSN, July 13).

Air Force Maj. Gen. William Shelton, director for policy, resources and requirements of the U.S. Strategic Command, which will have overall responsibility for system operations, however, here acknowledged the date as a goal but said it could be subject to change.

While Oct. 1 “has been the notional date that most folks have been working toward,” he said in comments to GSN, “when you’re talking about a capability that is under development, you’re working toward a goal as opposed to a hard and rigid date and I think people ought to view it in that light.”

“Certainly it’s a goal, but I sense that folks are maybe not as rigid,” he said. 

Lehner has said the final decision to deploy would be made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Strategic Command, the Northern Command, and other future system operators based on an assessment of the utility of putting it on alert.

Shelton suggested that that assessment process is continuing.

“No question there’s a lot of data still being gathered and a lot of things that still need to be considered,” he said.

The Strategic Command is not ready to judge the system operational, he told the conference.

“You look at the technical capability, you look at the crews being trained, you look at the procedures being put in place, you look at the engagement criteria, you look at the rules of engagement, you look at the policy in place, and if all of that comes together, then I think STRATCOM is going to satisfied that that is a capability that is ready for some limited operational use,” he said.

“But we’ve got a long way to go,” he said.

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