The head of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said he was confident the agency could keep the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) program on track after the top Democrat of the powerful Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee called its acquisition strategy into question on Wednesday.

Under the current strategy, the government leads the RKV design effort, with Raytheon [RTN], Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA] all designing and integrating specific components.

“From the outside, it looks like you’re taking three defense contractors that might and should be competing against each other, and putting them in a joint effort,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), ranking member on the committee, said during a hearing. “We’ve had some questionable experiences with that, have we not, in terms of procurement in the past? Once you’ve eliminated competition, the cost tends to skyrocket. So why wouldn’t it in this situation?”

Ground-Based Mid Course Defense (GMD) falls under the Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) umbrella. Photo: MDA.
Ground-Based Mid Course Defense (GMD) falls under the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) umbrella. Photo: MDA.

MDA Director Vice Adm. J.D. Syring said the agency will keep a tight grip on budgets at the component level and manage to a “should cost” threshold on every step of the design process.

“You check costs, and if it starts to become unaffordable in one particular area, you have the opportunity to revisit and change and do some trades between components or contractors at government direction,” he said.

Once the program wraps up design and development, however, the three contractors will have to compete for a production contract for a ground-based interceptor equipped with the RKV, he added.

“Given the state of the vehicle and the need to get this kill vehicle quickly to the fleet to replace less reliable kill vehicles, it’s absolutely in my recommendation and my sound backing,” to move forward on this strategy, he said.

With increased threats emanating from North Korea and Iran, MDA is increasingly looking for technologies that are more cost effective than current missile defense solutions, Syring said. The agency hopes that by increasing kill vehicle reliability though RKV, it will need fewer shots to destroy missile threats.

MDA requested $274 million for RKV in the fiscal year 2017 budget request and plans to conduct a flight test in late 2018 (Defense Daily, Feb. 10). The first intercept test is slated for 2019, and RKV deliveries could begin as early as the 2020 timeframe, according to Syring’s testimony.

In the past, the kill vehicle used in the Ground-Based Mid-Course Defense (GMD) system was integrated and manufactured by one company with a number of subcontractors underneath it, Syring said.

“I felt strongly that the government needed to take charge of this design, given we have one opportunity to get it right,” he said. MDA conducts oversight of the program through a “technical direction agent” similar to that used in the Aegis program.

The agency plans to use RKV as a bridge to the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle program, which will allow an interceptor to destroy multiple objects—such as a missile and its decoys—with a single kill vehicle.