Posted on 11/26/2001 9:39:13 AM PST by codebreaker
Congressional sources and government defense sources said the Islamic suicide attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan have led to a shift in priorities in the administration. They said that the administration will continue national missile defense testing but will delay deployment of such a system.
"There is simply no money for at least the next year," a senior congressional staffer who deals with the defense budget said. "Right now the NMD (National Missile Defense) concept is dead in terms of funding."
The defense sources said they expect the administration to slowly move toward the development of regional defense that would destroy missiles in their initial boost phase. The system would include unmanned air vehicles and laser weapons and integrate a range of systems.
When Bush took over, I actually fooled myself into believing, "At least the adults are back in charge."
How economical!
Interesting but confusing statement. Intercepting launch vehicles in their boost phase requires one of two scenarios, i.e. space based interceptors or forward based interceptors. So I presume they are speaking about forward based interceptors aimed at specific launch capable countries since one couldn't necessarily determine the target of a single warhead ICBM, much less a MiRVed launcher, early enough after launch to be an effective regional protection system. Furthermore, any space based system would have to be global to have 100% protection against any specific country. Further clarification is needed to understand the quoted statement.
Insted of getting to test a missile defense system for the United States and work out its flaws, now the whole world will be protected on our dime.
Thank you. I think I'm going to start giving the "Sanity Check" award to the first person in a thread who stops to say "Is this a reliable source?". You win this one.
Next we can dismantle the department of education and the environmental protection agency and we will really increase security (against government propaganda) and economic stimulus.
Keep working on that code, maybe you'll get some actual facts sooner or later. :)
BMDO Using New Target Booster For Missile Defense Test
By Kerry Gildea
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) is shifting to a new Orbital Sciences [ORB] target booster starting with this week's planned ballistic missile defense intercept test, program officials said yesterday.
BMDO plans to conduct the next flight test in its ground-based midcourse missile defense program on Thursday night (Defense Daily, Nov. 20).
In previous tests, BMDO used a Lockheed Martin [LMT] Multi-Service Launch System (MSLS) modified Minuteman ICBM target, program officials said. That MSLS carried a mock warhead and single balloon decoy.
However, a decision was made to use the Orbital suborbital booster target for the next test and several others that are planned to follow, the official said. The Orbital booster also is a modified Minuteman booster and will carry a mock warhead and single balloon decoy, the official said. The Orbital booster provides "different performance than the MSLS," the official said.
The decision was made earlier in the year to switch to the Orbital booster when the Lockheed Martin contract for its MSLS expired, officials said. Officials at Sandia National Laboratory, N.M., who approve the targets and decoys for the tests, pushed for the switch due to performance, officials said.
As of yesterday, preliminary ground checks indicate the test will go on time, but that will still be subject to the final pre-flight reviews that will take place over the course of this week.
The use of the new target booster is the only difference in the test profile from previous tests, officials said. The test will follow the same profile as the flight test conducted this past summer, including the use of a single balloon decoy.
During that July 14 test the modified Minuteman MSLS target provided by Lockheed Martin was launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. A prototype interceptor carrying a Raytheon [RTN]-built Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) was launched on a Lockheed Martin payload launch vehicle about 20 minutes later and 4,800 miles away from the Ronald Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll.
About 10 minutes after its launch, the kill vehicle distinguished the target from the balloon decoy and intercepted it at an altitude of more than 140 miles, during the midcourse phase of the target warhead's flight. Boeing [BA] is the lead systems integrator for the overall program, which was formerly called the national missile defense program.
The last hit marked the second successful intercept for the program. During an intercept try on July 8, 2000, the kill vehicle did not separate from the booster. The missile defense interceptor hit a target in its first try on Oct. 3, 1999, but then failed in the second test on Jan. 19, 2000, when the EKV's infrared seekers failed due to moisture in the seekers' coolant system.
Program officials told Defense Daily a beacon on the target will be used again in this week's test to develop the weapons task plan, which directs the booster carrying the kill vehicle to a specific point in space after it is launched from Kwajalein.
"It directs the booster...you can't just launch the booster blind," a program official said.
However, the kill vehicle has no contact with the beacon and uses only information from the X-Band radar and it's own sensors to locate, track and destroy the target, officials explained. They denied that BMDO is rigging the test in any way by using the beacon.
Following the July test, allegations surfaced that the systems used in the test were only able to operate because BMDO had placed a beacon on the target to relay its location. But, BMDO and independent review team officials later explained that the beacon did not play any role in the kill vehicle's ability to locate and hit the target. The beacon, they said, was used solely for radar purposes to provide a midcourse check on the target because the more sophisticated radar capabilities planned for the missile defense architecture are not yet available.
Because there currently is no sophisticated missile defense X-Band radar capability available for the flight tests, a FPQ-14 range radar in Kaena Point, Hawaii, is used to provide a midpoint target tracking update, BMDO officials said. However, it is not powerful enough to obtain that data without the use of a beacon on the target, they explained.
anymouse: self appointed thread content god since June 9 1998.
If you have better, more accurate information please share it and refute the article.
still waiting
- uh still waiting
yup - I figured
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