More Realistic U.S. Missile Defense Tests Planned

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency plans more rigorous, realistic testing of missile shield elements following a spate of successful target missile interceptions, Aviation Week reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 15).

“It is absolutely remarkable how far we’ve come,” said agency chief Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, who has overseen the multilayered system’s development since 2004.  “What we have to do now is to turn our attention to make sure we can fully wring out the system in a variety of operational and realistic scenarios.  And that is what we will be doing over the next couple of years.”

Obering said the agency concentrated on conducting more thorough quality control and testing of its systems after it experienced malfunctions during field tests of prototypes as well as other technical shortfalls earlier in the decade.  In one botched test, the missile interceptor being vetted was unable to even launch from its silo.

However, a former testing chief for the U.S. Defense Department has warned that the missile defense system’s development has been unacceptably slow.

“At the rate they are going, ... it could take them 50 years” to test many of the system’s capabilities, said Philip Coyle, now a senior adviser for the Center for Defense Information.

The missile detection systems and interceptors have not been proven operational at night, when they cannot depend on a targeted re-entry vehicle’s increased infrared signature in the light and heat of the sun, Aviation Week reported.

The Pentagon has also not completed testing the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system’s ability to combat countermeasures that North Korea and Iran might have already incorporated into their ballistic missile technology. 

Obering said the next test of the system would take place in spring 2008 and would be the first in five years to include countermeasures.  Out of 10 tests conducted since 1999, the system has completed six successful interceptions that destroyed their ballistic missile targets using the force of impact.

Obering said that U.S. missile defenses can now stop a ballistic missile attack, although the system has shifted repeatedly between an operational configuration and a testing setup that would prevent commanders from responding to an attack using operational interceptor missiles.

Coyle said a ballistic missile attack against the United States is likely to employ many more missiles than the system could stop in its current state.  U.S. missile defenses currently incorporate 20 interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and three interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (Amy Butler, Aviation Week, Dec. 2).

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