|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Missile Defense Tests Delayed Until Next Year By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The U.S. Missile Defense Agency says it is again delaying intercept testing of its flagship anti-ICBM program until next year, even as it continues to deploy additional interceptors in Alaska (see GSN, Aug. 23). The agency is planning two test launches of Ground-based Midcourse Defense system interceptors without targets this year, according to spokesman Richard Lehner. The first launch, scheduled for next month, would test the newly configured interceptor-missile combination and “exercise the command and control system,” he said by e-mail. The second, expected by the end of the year, would launch the interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base for the first time, he said. Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering “believes this is a prudent approach to exercising command and control, battle management and communications, as well as warfighter participation,” Lehner said. The last attempted intercept using GMD components occurred in November 2002. The kill vehicle failed to separate from its rocket booster in order to strike the target, the agency said then. Nevertheless, a week later the agency announced a plan to deploy up to 20 interceptor missiles in Alaska and California by the end of 2005, citing a “new security environment and progress made to date in missile defense development efforts.” The plan was spurred by an order that month by President George W. Bush to begin fielding a capability by the end of 2004. The agency has since said it would field an additional 20 missiles in Alaska by the end of 2007 and has asked Congress for initial funding to begin installing up to 10 at an undetermined European site. Critics have charged the Bush administration with possibly wasting billions of dollars on the deployments, as the GMD system has not yet demonstrated, through realistic flight testing, that it could ever work against a real attack. Fielded Interceptor Not TestedThe interceptor-missile packages that now are being fielded are different from those used in the 2002 test and before. They use a new, more powerful three-stage booster and an interceptor with new hardware and software. The agency attempted an intercept test using the new combination in December 2004 and January 2005. In both cases, the interceptor failed to leave the launch pad, giving the agency with a five-for-10 record for the highly scripted GMD intercept tests. A panel of experts told the agency in March that a rush to deploy the missiles had undermined quality control, causing those failures (see GSN, June 10). It recommended that the next system flight test be a nonintercept test, to focus on “obtaining data on flight characteristics” and other information. It said further that the next intercept test should not occur until it was believed it would have an 80-percent probability of success. In an apparent attempt to step up the pace of testing, the agency recently decided to redirect four interceptor missiles from deployment in Alaska to the testing program, according to Inside Missile Defense (see GSN, Aug. 4).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
