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BASIC-DEMOS

Missile Defence Conference

BASIC and Demos hosted a Missile Defence Conference in London on 9 November 2004.

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U.S. Missile Defense Update

Theresa Hitchens, Vice President, Center for Defense Information, Washington DC.

First, thanks to BASIC and Demos for inviting me to participate today, and thanks to all of you for taking the time to join in. I've been asked to provide an update on the U.S. Missile Defense Program.

As you know, President George W. Bush on Dec. 17, 2002, announced that the United States intended to field an "initial" missile defense capability - rather than simply a test bed as had previously been stated -- within two to three years. He said, "We plan to begin operating these initial capabilities in 2004 and 2005, and they will include ground-based interceptors, sea-based interceptors, additional Patriot (PAC-3) units, and sensors based on land, at sea and in space."

We've less than two months to go in 2004. So, do we have or are we nearing the capability to operate a missile defense system? Not really. Indeed, a presidential or Pentagon announcement that the GMD system was going on alert - long anticipated as taking place at the end of October this year just prior to the Nov. 2 presidential elections - has been put on hold.

Let's look at what has happened, and what hasn't.

Since July this year, five interceptors of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System - the current centerpiece of the planned missile defense architecture predicted by the Pentagon to cost about $25.3 billion to build -- have been placed in silos at Ft. Greely, Alaska. MDA, in its original planning after the 2002 mandate, had hoped to have nine in the ground by this time, followed by 10+ more at Ft. Greely, four at Vandenberg, Calif., and 10 more at an "undisclosed" third location by the end of 2005. It now looks like the 2005 schedule is likely to stretch into 2006.

Further, the GMD interceptors buried under the frigid ground in Alaska have never been flight tested. Indeed, the GMD program has only tried to intercept a target eight times since testing began in 1997 - with three failures. The most recent flight test - which took place on Dec. 11, 2002, six days before President Bush's deployment announcement - failed.

The tests that have been done up to now, however, involved fundamentally different technology than that making up the interceptors at Ft. Greely.

Missile defense interceptors consist of a two-stage booster rocket tipped with a so-called kill vehicle, which is released in flight and maneuvered toward a target ICBM in order to smash into it at very high speeds. The Ft. Greely interceptors are based on a new booster made by Orbital Sciences, which has never been tested to see if it could successfully launch the kill vehicle. The earlier tests used a slower, proven booster (and still had troubles - despite the fact that the target was provided with an infrared homing beacon that allowed the GMD interceptor to fix on it rather than have to pick it out of clutter). This is significant because the higher speeds of the new booster, more vibration will occur - vibration that might affect the kill vehicle's sensitive sensors and other components. And the back-up booster being made by Lockheed Martin continues to face developmental problems that caused MDA to seek out Orbital as an alternative in the first place.

In addition, the kill vehicle on the interceptors at Ft. Greely also has new software for target identification that has never been tested against a target.

Still, no intercept tests of the current interceptor configuration are planned anytime soon. The next planned test, known as Integrated Flight Test-13C, is not designed to see if the kill vehicle can successfully fire and find its target, rather the test is aimed at making sure components work together. And even that test has been postponed several times since January due to computer glitches, the latest MDA plan slates it for either later this month or sometime in December. It remains unclear when an intercept test for the Ft. Greely configuration will take place, as MDA and the Pentagon's Office of Test & Evaluation are now involved in an effort to re-vamp the GMD testing schedule.

Of course, an operational missile defense system comprises more than just an interceptor. Sensors for finding, tracking and homing in on incoming enemy ICBMs are critical - you can't hit what you can't see. The truth is that the GMD interceptors at Ft. Greely currently are essentially blind. The sensor suites planned - the sea-based X-band radar needed to pick out the ICBM from any decoys or debris as it whizzes through space, and a network of new early warning satellites called the Space-Based Infrared System-High (SBIRS-High); and new missile tracking satellites now known as the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) - do not yet exist.

The $900-million X-band radar won't be available for integration with the GMD system until next year at the earliest - it was supposed to begin integration in 2003. Both the new satellite networks have suffered technical difficulties, schedule delays and cost overruns - and continue to suffer from congressional skepticism in the form of budget cuts. The first Space Tracking and Surveillance System satellite is now scheduled for launch sometime in 2007. The program, formally named Space-Based Infrared System-Low (SBIRS-Low), was launched in 1996 and at that time the first satellite was projected to be launched in 2004. The program also has been substantially dumbed down as well as slowed down, in that the first two satellites of the STSS are based on old technology without the new capabilities originally envisioned for the system, while the contractors work on new technology development. Further, the final configuration and cost of STSS are currently unknown - as the Missile Defense Agency this year classified much of the program.

The Space-Based Infrared System-High has experienced even worse problems, with costs jumping from the original 1996 estimate of $3.6 billion (including ground facilities) to a currently projected $10.2 billion. The first satellite, designed to go into a Highly Elliptical Orbit, was delivered this year, 18 months late, and it remains unclear when it will be launched. The follow-on effort to put sister satellites into Geosynchronous Orbit is now is looking to slip another two years from its most recently planned launch date of 2006.

This leaves the GMD system dependent for the foreseeable on the Cold War-era Cobra Dane radar based at Shemya, Alaska, which because of its original mission of tracking incoming Soviet ICBMs, has little capability to track any ICBMs emanating from North Korea. It also means that the GMD system can't distinguish between decoys and/or debris and actual warheads, meaning it is vulnerable to simple countermeasures.

In addition, the command and control system software to operate the system is still in development and the latest iteration has yet to be tested.

All of these problems lead to the delay in MDA's planned October announcement that the system had been activated. The Pentagon's informal goal since 2002 had been to announce "initial capability" by Sept. 30 this year; with some DoD officials asserting that this initial system would be 90 percent likely to knock down a North Korean missile if one was launched at the United States. In recent weeks, MDA has insisted that the goal was to begin "limited defensive operations" sometime after December. Now, insiders are saying it could be February before any capability can be stood up.

Another reason for the delay was that Northern Command, which is to operate the system, and Strategic Command, which is designated as the military's missile defense "advocate," have yet to figure out the chain of command needed to run the GMD system. This is partly a bureaucratic wrangle, but also there is serious concern at both commands about the systems readiness. According to the Orlando Sentinel, STRACOM officials "are so concerned about the effectiveness of the new system that they have decided not to rely on it if a missile attack appears imminent." "The system will not affect recommendations given up the chain of command," one source told the paper, "That means in STRATCOM's eyes, it's useless."

So, if GMD remains useless, what about the other pieces of the layered missile defense network? Well, the best we can say is that they are all at an immature state of development. The sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense program also is facing interceptor problems, and plans for fielding the initial configuration have been cut back. Scheduling delays now call into question the Navy's capability to fulfill even its less ambitious goal of equipping two ships with initial variants of the SM-3 interceptor by the 2004/2005 timeframe for about $1.2 billion. The long-troubled Airborne Laser (ABL) is teetering on the brink of cancellation, with the planned "first light" of the laser itself once again being delayed from this fall to likely no sooner than early next year due to problems with the chemical fuel mix and the system for pumping it. Meanwhile, the projected costs for the ABL have doubled to $5.1 billion, even after MDA cut back its original goal of seven airplanes to one (a second planned order was recently put on hold.) When ABL began in 1996, it was projected to have its first intercept test in 2002 and have planes flying in 2006. Under current plans, the first intercept test is not slated until 2006 at the earliest. As for the space-based interceptor system envisioned by MDA, only about $10 million has been requested so far for technology development - although current plans are to orbit three to six interceptors as a "test bed" in 2012. MDA has refused to provide cost estimates or any real parameters for such a future system; meanwhile, the concept itself is controversial among many in Congress who are concerned about the negative ramifications of the United States becoming the first country to put weapons in space.

MDA requested, and received from Congress, a total of $10.2 billion in fiscal year 2005 for missile defense programs, and increase of 13 percent from the FY 04 request. A total of $53.1 billion is earmarked for missile defense through FY 09. Up to this point, the United States has spent about $90 billion pursuing missile defense since Ronald Reagan launched his Star Wars effort. Despite this expenditure, it currently remains impossible to predict when even a limited defensive capability will be available.