MDA Officials Briefing Lawmakers On MRBM Target Cancellation

Inside Defense ^ | 6/30/2010 | John Liang

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Missile Defense Agency officials are briefing lawmakers this week about the agency’s decision to cancel the competition for the Medium-Range Ballistic Missile Target class due to a lack of money.

In a June 25 agency announcement posted on Federal Business Opportunities, MDA states that “sufficient funds are not available” to make a contract award for the MRBM Type 1 Target program. Consequently, “the solicitation was canceled,” the notice adds. In response to an Inside Missile Defense query, an MDA spokesman declined to comment in “advance of providing cancellation information to Congress.”

“We’ve been receiving requests for info so I’m guessing it will be a continuing process for at least this week,” the spokesman added.

MDA’s new approach to developing and acquiring targets will take “several years” to be fully implemented “because most targets needed through fiscal year 2011 are already under contract and will not be affected by the new strategy,” according to the Government Accountability Office’s annual assessment of the agency released in March. The activities under existing contracts will not be complete until 2013,” the report states. “Moreover, MDA’s implementation of a new acquisition management strategy does not necessarily mean that any particular target currently being used, such as the LV-2, will be phased out of the test program. MDA could decide to continue to use an existing target under the new strategy, and as a result, some existing target missiles could continue to be procured under new contracts.” MDA is asking Congress for slightly more than $4.87 billion for its test and targets program over the next five fiscal years, according to the overview accompanying the agency’s FY-11 budget justification documents.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

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