Missile Defense's New Look To Emerge This Summer

Aviation Week & Space Technology ^ | 3/25/02 | Robert Wall

[Paul Ross]

Aviation Week & Space Technology:
March 25, 2002

Missile Defense's New Look

To Emerge This Summer

ROBERT WALL/WASHINGTON

Airborne Laser, other projects get makeover as Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty restrictions fall by the wayside

The Pentagon's plans for an expanded anti- missile shield should crystallize this summer when a recently anointed team of industry experts is to express its views on a new missile defense architecture.

Senior Defense Dept. officials have been busy, in recent months, creating a new management and oversight structure for missile defense endeavors. Moves included establishing two industry panels-- one led by Boeing focused on system engineering and integration, the other by Lockheed Martin concentrating on battle management issues--to advise the military on a new development road map, particularly one unconstrained by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The treaty will no longer be in force in June.

"I want the first set of products by the end of June," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, who heads the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). "I'm pushing people pretty hard," he added. The teams will have had barely six months from being put together to start delivering results.

The two national teams are assessing the status of existing missile defense projects that eventually are to be tied together into the larger, layered ballistic missile defense system the Pentagon envisions. The companies are "supporting us in the system definition and doing the detailed specification analysis," Kadish said. The Pentagon will act as the prime contractor for the larger system. "The management challenge is almost as complex, if not more complex, as our technical challenges. That has not been true before," Kadish said.

Even as the organizational changes take hold, the Pentagon continues to pursue hardware development. Another milestone occurred earlier this month with the successful test of the ground- based, midcourse intercept system--formerly known as the National Missile Defense project. The Mar. 15 test marked the fourth intercept in six attempts. It also represented a step-up in complexity from earlier tries.

The mock warhead and three decoys--prior tests used only one decoy--were launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., at 9:11 p.m. EST. The interceptor carrying the exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) launched about 20 min. later from the Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. When the kill vehicle separated from its booster, it was about 1,400 km. (870 mi.) from the warhead, the Pentagon said. About 10 min. later the kill vehicle collided with the warhead. The EKV was guided to the target first through a ground-based X-band radar and later using its on-board visual and two infrared sensors.

Critics of the program were quick to say that little was accomplished. "Tonight's test is not that significant when you look at the big picture," said Chris Madison of the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation. "It's not a final exam. It's more like a take-home quiz. You don't graduate when you pass one of these." The Pentagon has said repeatedly this test was no more than an early development step.

Moreover, a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists downplays the significance of having three decoys rather than just one, arguing that none was trying to replicate the signature of the mock warhead.

The Pentagon has tried to explain the relative significance of the added balloons. "It adds more complexity to the overall test process as well as [presenting a] data-gathering opportunity for the kill vehicle; and it challenges [the EKV] a little bit," Kadish said. However, he stressed that the balloons were not trying to spoof the EKV. In fact, what the MDA really has been trying to accomplish is gather data on balloons of different sizes rather than perform "discrimination" between them and the warhead, he noted.

For the Pentagon's missile defense developers, one of the most encouraging signs in the test was that it could be done relatively soon after the last intercept in December. "The processes required to do all that have become more repeatable," Kadish noted. "That gives me an indication of the maturity of the overall effort," he said, adding that "I think we are about there."

The ground-based, midcourse intercept segment will be a core part of the future ballistic missile defense system. However, the larger program will also include other components that have been part of the Pentagon's development plans for some time, such as the short-range Patriot PAC-3, the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad), the sea-based, midcourse intercept system--or Navy Theater Wide- -and the Airborne Laser (see following story). Those efforts are likely to be modified based on the findings of the missile defense architecture group, even though core technologies are expected to remain the same. "I am pretty well convinced that over the next 18 months there will be changes that will affect the programs in the longer term," Kadish said.

The architecture study also is expected to generate the need for new components that will serve as elements of the overall defense system. The industry teams advising the MDA are expected to identify what new projects are required, but they won't have a hand in selecting the contractors to avoid conflicts of interest. "Where we need competition to build items, we will do that outside the national team," Kadish said.

The Pentagon does not intend to wait for the national team to help define its sea-based, terminal defense plans to replace the canceled Navy Area Wide or to restructure the Space-Based Infrared System-Low. "There are things we will need to do to keep these efforts going" although they will be later aligned with the larger missile defense plan. The projects, once revamped, will be "more capability based and more evolutionary," Kadish said.

The Pentagon has embraced "alternative paths" to mature technologies as one of its risk-mitigation strategies. Such efforts aren't in direct competition but basically strive to achieve a similar goal. For instance, on the ground-based, midcourse project, it recently awarded Orbital Sciences Corp. a contract to develop a second interceptor booster. Lockheed Martin is taking over development from Boeing of the original booster. Both rockets may find their way into production. One reason to keep both boosters is to ensure that a hardware problem with one doesn't ground the entire fleet. Second, Kadish noted it would be a welcome boon to the production industrial base. "We were always going to struggle if we were going to build 100 missiles in a few years--that's a tough job."

A similar strategy is being considered for the EKV. In that case, the second system would likely be more complex than the current configuration Raytheon builds. The new kill vehicle would be smaller for use in ground- and sea-based applications, have a different composition of sensors--perhaps including radiofrequency seekers- -and a more capable divert and attitude control system. However, Kadish noted, "we have to be careful with complexity, too," to avoid the engineering challenge becoming too hard. In parallel, the Raytheon EKV gradually will be improved.

But one of the foremost challenges the Pentagon faces as it assembles the missile defense system is tying the disparate pieces together. "We need to go beyond interoperability in this layered defense system," Kadish stressed. "I'm expecting we'll move away from more autonomous elements to more integrated approaches as we deal with more long-range missiles."

Moreover, the Pentagon is trying to determine how to apportion intercepts to the various elements of the system. "What we don't want in a layered defense is that the boost-phase magazine gets depleted immediately, not recognizing there are other elements to the system. You can have perfect interoperability, but if you don't get all the cultural, battle management and other things put together properly, you could be shooting very precious bullets very inefficiently," he noted. "Interoperability is necessary, but not sufficient."

The new design is one reason the Pentagon has moved away from project-specific requirements documents, a move that has raised eyebrows among legislators skeptical of missile defense. Those requirements documents "were built on service-centric autonomous views," which, while not bad, were not the most efficient way to do missile defense, Kadish contends.

[Paul Ross]

This is a much more informative document than the Washington Post spin-cycled version. This source was obviously the genesis for the Post article.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[Paul Ross]

Head's up.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!