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Missile Defense Agency Happy With Simultaneous Booster Development
U.S. Missile Defense Agency officials have said their decision to have two companies simultaneously develop a missile interceptor booster rocket was vindicated when one of those firms suffered major setbacks, Aerospace Daily reported today (see GSN, Nov. 10). The agency decided last week to first use a booster developed by Orbital Sciences, instead of one by Lockheed Martin that was delayed by accidents at a rocket fuel production facility. “You never know what kind of contingency’s going to come up, and it paid off for sure this time,” said MDA spokesman Rick Lehner. Despite the setback, Lockheed Martin would still be asked to develop its booster, according to Lehner. “We’re certain they’ll come back,” he said. “It’s just a matter of them finding (a) facility for propellant mixing, which they’ll certainly do, so we fully intend to use their missiles down the line,” Lehner added (Rich Tuttle, Aerospace Daily, Nov. 11). Agency officials are also trying to test the recent progress made in developing the battle command management and control system that will direct the initial national missile defense system due to be fielded late next year. The MDA is having trouble, however, because it is proving difficult to conduct a test which simulates the flightpath that a North Korean would be expected to fly, Inside Missile Defense reported today. The U.S. aim is to test the Cobra Dane early warning radar system in Alaska, but the agency is unable to launch a mock target from East Asia (see GSN, Sept. 23). “The hard part is to get a target that comes in the right direction toward Cobra Dane, because that is not a launch site for us,” a Defense Department official said. Officials are investigating the possibility of launching the target from an aircraft or a sea-based platform. “Cobra Dane is particularly problematic because of where it is,” the official said. “There are a lot of things you can do not in an end-to-end fashion. There are foreign missile launches that Cobra Dane can see that can stimulate the radar, and you can understand how the radar sees that launch and you can simulate the rest of the engagement. But those aren’t (missiles) we would intercept,” the official added (Thomas Duffy, Inside Missile Defense, Nov. 12).
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