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Pentagon Announces GMD, THAAD Test Schedules
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has announced new testing schedules for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense and the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, The Huntsville (Ala.) Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 4). Ground-based tests on the GMD program are scheduled from this month through September, said Tom Devanney, GMD program manager in Huntsville. Four major interceptor flight tests are then scheduled between September and November 2006 — the first two without targets, the others with targets. In addition, a new early warning radar is scheduled to begin operating in the United Kingdom and two new interceptors are being installed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Devanney said. “We have 40 holes in the ground” for a missile field at Fort Greely, Alaska, he added. The THAAD system, meanwhile, has undergone extensive hardware improvements, said Col. Charles Driessnack, THAAD program manager. “We made it simple to perform maintenance. With 30 standard tools any soldier can perform maintenance on (THAAD) and complete it in under 30 minutes,” Driessnack said (Shelby Spires, Huntsville Times/al.com, Aug. 23). The Missile Defense Agency is preparing to resume THAAD flight tests in the next fiscal year, Driessnack said. The THAAD system is meant to use kinetic energy warheads to destroy short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during the last phase of flight, according to Inside the Army. Five flight tests are scheduled for the White Sands Missile Range, N.M., after which the system is to be moved to the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii at the end of fiscal 2006 for more complex testing, Driessnack told Inside the Army last month (Ashley Roque, Inside the Army, Aug. 22).
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