U.S. Plans:  Officials, Analysts Disagree on Patriot Missile

The U.S. military does not plan to use the Patriot missile system as a primary defense in the event of war with Iraq because the system is unreliable, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.  Military officials, however, said that the Patriot is improved and has destroyed Scud missile targets in tests (see GSN, Oct. 15).

The Pentagon is focusing on finding Iraqi Scud missiles before they are launched and destroying them on the ground, analysts said.  Defense officials acknowledged that the Patriot Advance Capability 2 — which is currently in use — has limited worth, and the new model is having trouble in development (see GSN, Sept. 19; Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 2).

An official from the Missile Defense Agency said, however, that the Patriot has been successful against Scuds since the 1991 Gulf War.

“Since Desert Storm, the Missile Defense Agency has researched, developed and turned over to the Army more than 300 Patriot PAC-2 Guidance Enhanced Missiles, which have destroyed Scud missile targets in tests,” the official said.

The Army reportedly has 38 of the latest Patriot missiles, known as PAC-3, and Army officials said that it is ready to use (see GSN, Oct. 31).

“We have an operational capacity in PAC-3,” Army Secretary Thomas White said Thursday.

The U.S. Army has made “fairly remarkable” progress in addressing the ballistic missile threat as a whole, according to Army Space and Missile Defense Command chief, Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano (Ann Roosevelt, Defense Week, Nov. 4).

Other Pentagon officials have also defended the Patriot system.

“It’s been tested pretty rigorously, we’ve been at it a long time, and we’re ready to declare it’s a useful military system,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, head of the Missile Defense Agency (see GSN, Nov. 1).

Israel, which codevelops the Arrow missile defense system with the United States, has expressed skepticism of the Patriot’s reliability.  Some private analysts also said they are less confident.

“The military is hopeful for what Patriot could do, but they clearly don’t intend to rely on it solely,” Brookings Institution scholar James Lindsay said.  The Patriot “is going to play only a supporting role” and the missile defense program as a whole “has been long on promises and short on products,” he said (Richter, Los Angeles Times).

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U.S. Plans I:  Pentagon Delays Airborne Laser Tests

The Pentagon plans to delay a  previously planned shoot-down test of the U.S. Airborne Laser system because of weight problems on the Boeing 747 that houses the system, a senior defense official said this week (see GSN, Aug. 12).

“We’re still assessing … the fourth quarter of calendar year 2004 as being the shoot-down time frame,” said Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, head of the Missile Defense Agency.

The test of the system’s lethal capacity was originally scheduled for 2003, but documents submitted to Congress in February by the Defense Department indicate that the test is now planned for the end of 2004.

“Basically, the problem we have with the Airborne Last is not that it’s carrying too much stuff, but in one part of the airplane it has too much weight,” Kadish said, referring to the back of the aircraft, which holds the lasers (Laura Colarusso, Inside the Air Force, Nov. 1).

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U.S. Plans II:  Developers Are Fixing PAC-3 Glitches, Kadish Says

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has been working to fix the “extremely annoying” glitches that caused failures in flight tests earlier this year on the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missile interceptor, agency director Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 5).

“We got a briefing from the technical teams a couple of weeks ago that gives me great confidence that we found the root cause of those problems,” Kadish told reporters.  “There was nothing major in the design that gives me cause for concern at this point, and (the problems) are relatively straightforward to fix and it requires process discipline.”

Agency officials have steered clear of any “witch hunt” to punish those who might be responsible, Kadish said.

“What we need to and continue to press on is we will fix the processes and we will improve them and make this equipment as good as we can make it, and that’s what we’re doing,” he said.  “As far as the mistakes that were made and assigning the blame, that’s not as important as fixing the process.”

Kadish also said that, as some other Pentagon officials have also suggested, he supports accelerating PAC-3 production to build an adequate supply of the interceptors in the event of a war with Iraq (see GSN, Oct. 31).  The Defense Acquisition Board was expected to review production plans for the interceptor yesterday.

“My recommendation has been, and will continue to be, buy Patriot 3 as quickly and as fast that we can afford to buy them,” Kadish said (Stephen Trimble, Aerospace Daily, Nov. 1).

Army to Take Over Program

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army will soon take control of the PAC-3 program from the Missile Defense Agency, Army Secretary Thomas White said yesterday.  The Pentagon has placed funding for the program in the Army’s fiscal 2003 budget submission.  The fiscal 2003 defense appropriations bill, however, places the PAC-3 funds in the agency’s budget (see GSN, Oct. 24; Ann Roosevelt, Defense Week, Oct. 31).

For further information, see:

MDA Basics of Missile Defense

MDA Missile Defense System

PAC-3 Fact Sheet

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Russia:  Duma Ratifies Radar Agreement

The Russian State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, ratified an agreement Monday to lease the Habala radar facility in Azerbaijan (see GSN, Oct. 10).  Operators believe the facility, which monitors airspace south of Russia, should reach the end of its service life in 2012, which gives Russia enough time to build its own radar station to monitor the region, according to ITAR-Tass (ITAR-Tass, Oct. 30 in FBIS-SOV, Oct. 30).

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U.S. Plans:  Lockheed Martin to Propose Airship

Lockheed Martin is ready to propose designing an airship that could be equipped with an early warning radar for U.S. missile defense systems, Defense Week reported today (see GSN, Aug. 9).

The Missile Defense Agency, the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the Office of the Secretary of Defense held an “industry day” last week on requirements for an unmanned airship that could carry a payload of up to 4,000 pounds at an altitude of 70,000 feet for more than a month, according to Defense Week.  The airship is the subject of a proposed three-year Defense Department Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, worth between $50 million and $100 million, Defense Week reported. 

A request for airship proposals is expected to be issued in mid-January, with the proposals due in early February and the contract awarded by mid-March, according to sources.  The MDA has planned three demonstrations of the airship — in August 2004, November 2004 and April 2005, Defense Week reported

The Lockheed Martin airship would be 482 feet long, 180 feet tall and 153 feet in diameter, Defense Week reported.  The airship is expected to be able to scan a 1,200-kilometer area, said Ronald Browning, director of business development for surveillance systems at Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems in Akron, Ohio.  The airship would contain about 5 million cubic feet of gas with no internal structure, Browning said.  It would also have four moveable propeller engines, but no rudders or fins.

At 70,000 feet, there exists an area of low wind — a good environment for airships, Browning said.

“It’s a very benign environment,” he said.  “You get up here through the jet stream and basically just park at that level” (Ann Roosevelt, Defense Week, Oct. 28).

For further information, see:

MDA Basics of Missile Defense

MDA Missile Defense System

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French Plans:  Defense Ministry Plans Upgrade to Air Defense Missile

France announced last week it would begin to upgrade its Aster 30 air defense missile to make it capable of intercepting theater ballistic missiles, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported today (see GSN, July 31).

The new Block 2 Aster 30 is expected to have more than twice the range of the original, from 600 kilometers to 1,500 kilometers.  During a Euronaval exhibition in Le Bourget, France, the French armaments agency announced it would begin preliminary design on the new Aster.

Some analysts said France could be seeking to take advantage of the cancellation of the U.S. Navy Area Wide missile defense system (see GSN, March 28).  Several European countries had considered the U.S. system — developed by U.S. defense contractor Raytheon — and might now turn to France, Aviation Week reported (Aviation Week and Space Technology, Oct. 28)

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