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U.S. Plans Basic Missile Defense Interceptor Tests By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has scripted a series of flight tests this year for its vanguard national missile interceptor that are easier than previous tests, as the agency hopes to convince U.S. war-fighters and Congress that the multibillion-dollar system has some minimal capability and should be declared operational, according to officials and government reports (see GSN, April 5). The agency plans three similar test scenarios as it attempts to demonstrate a new interceptor — consisting of a booster missile and “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” — capable of striking targets in space. Only the third test might use a target that will use techniques, known as countermeasures, that are intended to make the interceptor miss its target, an official said. A slower prototype reportedly intercepted targets five times from 1999 to 2002 while facing countermeasures. The new interceptors already are being deployed in Alaska and California. “While we’ve demonstrated technology for hit-to-kill [with the prototype], we haven’t done it on the operational booster and operational kill vehicle,” Defense Department acting Operational Test and Evaluation Director David Duma said at a March 9congressional hearing. Through “this test that’s unfolding this year, we will get a better understanding of just exactly the effectiveness of the EKV in an endgame, and the interceptor,” Lt. Gen. Larry Dodgen, commander of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said at the hearing. President George W. Bush in December 2002 directed that the military deploy an initial missile defense capability by the end of 2004, but commanders have yet to present a formal assessment concluding that the developmental system might provide even an elementary defense. Such an assessment would help the defense secretary decide whether to declare the system fully operational. Officials have said the Missile Defense Agency would add complexity this year to the testing of its Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, including by incorporating operationally active systems and using real military crews to fire the interceptors, which they said could make an intercept test more challenging. “We have resumed an aggressive test program that includes up to three more flight tests planned this year, beginning this summer. These will include realistic targets, operational sensors, operational crews and operational interceptors from operational silos, with two of them planned as intercepts,” said agency director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering at an April 4 hearing. Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said recently by e-mail that he was prohibited from discussing whether countermeasures would be used in testing, but said “the tests will be very challenging.” “They are all tough, and they haven’t been simplified,” he said. “They are very operationally realistic, or as much as we can make them with the operational components that are available to us this year.” Critics say demonstrating the operational capability of the system would require multiple tests using operational systems and different scenarios against complex countermeasures and challenges such as tumbling warheads, multiple targets, and nighttime intercepts. The Missile Defense Agency is planning three key flight tests this year, in May or early June, late summer, and late fall, officials said. The kill vehicle should see the same basic scenario in these tests, giving it essentially three tries to hit a target under similar conditions. A single target is to be launched from Kodiak, Alaska, fly past an upgraded early warning radar in northern California, and face an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The first two planned tests will be “risk reduction flights,” apparently intended to ensure that the system’s sensors can accurately identify and track the target, in preparation for an “operationally realistic” flight test toward the end of the year, Duma said at the April 4 hearing. In all three tests the interceptor’s separating “kill vehicle” will attempt to hit the target, although agency officials have said that would not be the primary objective of the first test. “Target characterization” is the goal of the first exercise. “We’d like to know how does the target appear to the [early warning] radar,” a defense official told reporters at a briefing in February. The system, though, will definitely try to hit the target in the first test, the official said. “You better believe it, but the primary objective is radar target characterization.” In addition, in at least the first two tests and possibly the third, the interceptor is not to face countermeasures, Duma said at the hearing, such as decoys that an attacking country might use to fool the interceptor, which were seen in earlier testing. “What we’re looking at to declare the limited defensive operations is … a single incoming missile … a simple missile, if you will,” he said. He added that officials are considering adding countermeasures to the testing if the three tests are successful, and “maybe even [to] that third test in that series.” “We’ll probably make the target more sophisticated. … Because the flight in May and the flight in August will be identical,” the unidentified official said in February. Prove Hit-to-Kill AgainThe interceptor’s kill vehicle underwent a number of changes from the prototype kill vehicle used in earlier successful intercepts, officials have said. Among other modifications, the interceptor’s front-end sensor was redesigned to withstand greater forces in flight from more powerful boosters than used in the prototype tests. The changes have required the Missile Defense Agency to demonstrate as it did with the prototype that the deployed interceptor is capable of hitting a target. “The fundamental technical unknown at this point is to demonstrate the intercept capability on the ground-based interceptor,” Duma said. The agency had planned four tests with the current kill vehicle during fiscal 2005, with several primary objectives, including demonstrating “the interceptor’s ability to hit and kill the target,” a Government Accountability Office report said last month. Testing was suspended though after the interceptors failed to leave their silos during tests in December 2004 and February 2005. The failures were attributed to quality control problems. A Missile Defense Agency audit last year raised questions about whether the kill vehicles used in the testing and deployed in Alaska and California also have flaws resulting from poor quality control, the Government Accountability Office report said. The auditors found evidence that the “reliability of the EKV’s design cannot be determined, and any estimates of its serviceable life are likely unsupportable,” the report said. They concluded also, “The contractor’s production processes are immature, and the contractor cannot build a consistent, reliable product.” The report said the agency had taken a number of steps to address quality control issues, including increasing contractor surveillance and restructuring the program’s test plan to make it more systematic for the tests this fiscal year. “The first flight tests have simple objectives,” it said, stating that a December 2005 test was intended to demonstrate that the interceptor could be successfully launched, and that the kill vehicle could successfully separate from it. By the third test this year, “MDA expects to be ready to demonstrate that the GMD system is capable of hitting an operationally representative target. Tests that follow will become progressively more difficult,” it said of the tests planned for this year. Officials expressed optimism that the planned testing this year would be successful. “I maintain we’re going to hit the target in May. I have great confidence if we fire, we will hit the target,” the unidentified official said. “We’re going to fire when we’re satisfied that we’ve given it every opportunity for a successful flight,” the official added. Obering pointed to the reportedly successful tests of the prototype interceptor from previous years. “The basic functionality, the basic technology, we believe we’ve proven,” he said. “We have the processing power, we have the margin on the divert system, we have demonstrated the algorithms, we have demonstrated that when we put this [prototype] kill vehicle in its terminal game, it does a pretty good job,” he said.
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