U.S. Plans:  Sea-Based System Was Close When Canceled, Contractor Says

The contractor behind the Navy Area Wide missile defense system believes the program was about to prove its ability when the Bush administration killed it last year, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Jan. 4).

The program suffered numerous delays and was over budget, but the problems had more to do with small obstacles — such as moving the location of personnel for program contractor Raytheon — than with technical difficulties, the system’s proponents said.

“We felt that the major technological problems had been solved, that all the risk was behind us,” said Jeff McKeel, a Raytheon executive.

Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish had proposed to conduct flight tests in February with the understanding that the program would be canceled if the tests failed, but Defense Undersecretary for Acquisition Pete Aldridge canceled the program in December.  Some Navy officials said the tests would have proved the program would work.

Over Budget …

Aldridge and opponents of the program, known as Navy Area Wide, say the program was 32 percent over budget.  The Nunn-McCurdy Act requires that if any weapons system exceeds its budget by 25 percent the Pentagon must certify it is vital to national security.  The Pentagon did not so certify the Navy program.

Officials did not take the threat to the program seriously, Aldridge said.

Navy officials said the MDA prefers land-based programs and has allowed two Army missile defense programs to continue despite being more over budget than Navy Area Wide.  Observers have said canceling the program put other troubled programs on notice that the Bush administration is serious about cutting missile defense systems that fail.

“Now let me tell you, the message is out,” Aldridge said.

MDA officials expressed frustration with the program and said the Navy oversold its abilities.

“They seemed to expect we would pay any price and showed a sense of entitlement instead of urgency,” a senior official said.

… And Failed Technically

Navy Area Wide was also not working technically, Pentagon officials said.  Part of the program’s advantage was the idea that some Navy ships with Aegis radar, which can track and target multiple aircraft and cruise missiles, could be converted to launch anti-missile interceptors as well, the Post reported.

Opponents, however, have that incorporating two different technologies — an infrared sensor to target ballistic missiles and a radio frequency seeker to engage traditional targets — did not work, according to the Post.

“There was no indication that they were ever going to solve the problem in any reasonable period of time,” Aldridge said (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2001).

A Need Remains

Some top Pentagon and Navy officials have said there is an urgent need for a sea-based system to hit short-range ballistic missiles — the goal for Navy Area Wide.

“The requirement is urgent — there’s no doubt about that,” said a senior official.

Without Navy Area Wide, the Pentagon has no prospect for such a system in the near future, according to the Post.

“I certainly hope we can put that program back together,” said Adm. Dennis Blair, in Senate Armed Services Committee testimony this month.

Alternative Systems?

Aldridge has called for a study on alternatives to Navy Area Wide by May, and the new study will focus on developing a system only designed to hit ballistic missiles, rather than incorporating different technologies, officials said (see GSN, Jan. 18).

The Pentagon is also working on a sea-based system to target medium-range missiles (see GSN, Jan. 28), and its first flight test in January was successful (Bradley Graham, Washington Post, March 28).

Back to top

U.S. Plans:  Lockheed Martin to Produce More PAC-3 Missiles

U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin has won a U.S. Army contract worth more than $325 million for the continued production of the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile, the company announced yesterday (see GSN, March 22).

The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command contract is for 72 PAC-3 missiles with 26 missile-round trainers, six telemetry kits, six launcher modification kits and nine fire solution kits.  Lockheed Martin said it plans to deliver the order by February 2005.

The PAC-3 missile destroys incoming enemy targets such as theater ballistic missiles and cruise missiles by direct impact.  The new PAC-3 will increase the firepower of a Patriot missile battery, since a Patriot launcher can hold 16 PAC-3 missiles, as opposed to four PAC-2 missiles.

“The PAC-3 missile is the world’s most effective hit-to-kill air defense missile,” said Mike Trotsky, vice president of Air Defense Programs for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, in a press release.

“We continue to see the robustness of PAC-3 in ongoing operational tests,” Trotsky said.  “As PAC-3 missile production ramps up and economies of scale are introduced, we are confident that PAC-3 will become the world’s most cost-effective hit-to-kill air defense missile” (Lockheed Martin release, March 26).

Back to top

U.S. Plans:  Former Pentagon Official Questions Sea-Based National Missile Defenses

By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. Navy cruisers being prepared to provide regional missile defenses are unlikely to fulfill Bush administration plans for them to eventually conduct midcourse intercepts of ballistic missiles headed toward the United States, a former Pentagon official told Global Security Newswire (see GSN, March 4).

The Aegis cruisers spearheading the developmental Navy Sea-Based Midcourse Defense program are ill suited for the national missile defense role because their radars are not powerful enough and their interceptor missiles are too slow and lack maneuverability, according to Philip Coyle, who until last year served as the Defense Department’s director of operational testing and evaluation.

The cruisers would need so many expensive modifications to adequately conduct midcourse intercepts of intercontinental ballistic missiles the Navy might have to build new ships to handle such a responsibility, Coyle said.

“You’d need a missile that’s about twice as fast as the one they’ve got,” Coyle said, referring to the Standard Missile 3, or SM-3, that is being readied for use in the theater defense system.  “You’d need a different kill vehicle, the lightweight kill vehicle … and you’d need a radar with more power and range.”

Missiles that are twice as fast as the SM-3 — which travels about three kilometers per second, much more slowly than ICBMs that fly at seven kilometers per second — would “have to be physically bigger, fatter and taller, so they won’t fit in an existing launch tube on a Navy cruiser,” Coyle continued. 

“So before you’re through with a new missile, a new launch system and a new radar, you probably need some new ships.”

Capt. Mac Grant, program manager of the Navy anti-missile system, declined telephone interview requests from GSN but he did accept written questions.

“The short answer is the SM-3 for [sea-based missile defense] is sufficient to do the job if the ship can launch the SM-3 guided missile soon enough to be targeted at the predicted intercept point at the same time as the ballistic missile target,” Grant wrote, providing a hand-written diagram that shows a successful intercept where the interceptor is fired from a point underneath the trajectory of the incoming ICBM.

Missile defense analysts who agreed with Coyle’s assertions also acknowledged Grant’s contention that the speed of SM-3 will suffice if the cruisers can get in the right position and have enough time to fire at an ICBM.

The slow speed of the SM-3 is “not a show stopper,” according to Ted Postol, a longtime critic of missile defenses who is a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The main concern about the Navy interceptor missile, however, is its kill vehicle, known as the lightweight exoatmospheric projectile, Postol and other analysts said (see GSN, Jan. 25).  The infrared seeker on the kill vehicle is not fast or strong enough to pick up the signals of a warhead released from an incoming ICBM, they said.

“It’s not going to be able to determine decoys from warheads,” Postol said.  “It’s going to have a difficult time acquiring the target … and putting the kill vehicle in the right position where it has a chance of acquiring and closing in on the warhead.”

“It’s just not going to be able to react quickly enough,” said David Wright, a senior member of the Union of Concerned Scientists who has also criticized efforts to build midcourse intercept missile defenses (see GSN, March 15).  “It’s just not likely to work” against ICBM warheads.

Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute said that the SM-3 could be used “as a very last resort” if the Navy knows the ICBM launch point and has about 15 minutes of warning.  In most cases, however, “that kind of speed is not sufficient to pull off the maneuverability you would need for a terminal intercept.”

Another serious obstacle the Navy cruisers must overcome in order to handle the national missile defense role is building stronger and more reliable radars, the analysts said.  The current Aegis radars were designed to track aircraft and slower, shorter-range missiles than ICBMs, and they do not have enough range, they said.

“The Aegis radar is not up to the job” of tracking fast-moving ICBMs fired at great distances from the cruisers, Postol said.  “It would probably need a radar similar to but different from the one being used by THAAD,” the Army’s Theater High-Altitude Air Defense system radar.

Coyle and the analysts noted that the radars could work for boost-phase intercepts, a role the Bush administration is considering, because an ICBM in its boost phases emits a large signal (see GSN, March 11).  The current radar, however, is ill suited for tracking missiles and warheads at the midcourse of their trajectory, they said.

Grant, the Navy program manager, acknowledged that the Navy and its contractors are exploring a new radar system.

Prior studies “have highlighted the performance improvement gained from a more powerful radar system,” Grant wrote. 

“In 1999 we contracted with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to undertake the development of solid state radar prototypes.  As the block developments of the sea-based midcourse element of the [ballistic missile defensive system] become more defined we will have more information on how Aegis cruisers may be modernized to improve the performance of the weapon system,” he wrote.

“For a technology development program it’s moving pretty fast,” William Martel, a professor at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, said in reference to the new radar.  “You can always go faster by pouring money into technology, but there’s always a certain gestation time, particularly for high-end technology.”

Back to top

U.S. Plans:  MDA Delays Airborne Laser Test Until 2004

The Missile Defense Agency will probably delay the Airborne Laser’s first attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile until 2004, a year later than previously scheduled, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported today.

A top MDA official said small technical problems exist with the laser’s program, but an official with the ABL program said the problems are related to administrative restructuring (see GSN, March 14).

“The most likely date [for the test] is the fall of 2004,” said MDA Director Ronald Kadish.

There are small problems with the Boeing 747-based laser designed to shoot down a ballistic missile during its boost phase, but officials do not believe the system suffers any serious flaws, according to Aviation Week & Space Technology.

“The problems that were experienced — that prevented that 2003 (shoot-down attempt) — are not serious enough in our view, at this point in time, to restructure the program,” said Kadish.  Part of the problem relates to the system’s hardware, Kadish indicated, such as weight-distribution problems and poor manufacturing on some welds.

One program official, however, said the delay is “a reflection of our transition to the Missile Defense Agency .… MDA’s philosophy is to develop lower risk, higher confidence schedules for all of its programs, including us.  In other words, they want to make the testing program more comprehensive and extend it in case we run into unforeseen problems.”

The laser is currently the Pentagon’s most mature boost-phase intercept project, but MDA officials plan to put other boost-phase projects on the fast track, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported (see GSN, March 11).

Officials plan to hold the first flight of the Boeing 747-400 that is being modified to carry an airborne laser this summer (Robert Wall, Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 25).

Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP