The head of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) told Congress on Wednesday the agency plans to begin deliveries this year of nine new Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) including the newly tested kill vehicles.
Vice Adm. James Syring, director of the MDA, said after the recent successful FTG-15 intercept flight test, the new CE-II Block 1 Exo-atmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) and Configuration 2 (C2) three-stage booster will be part of this latest GBI delivery. Syring explained this in his prepared statement to a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing.
The tested EKV included new alternate divert thrusters to fix previous issues (Defense Daily, June 1).
Syring highlighted that in 2016 the MDA completed refurbishment of Missile Field 1 at Fort Greely, Alaska, providing the additional six silos needed to support expanding the GBI force to 44 total. The GBIs are the interceptors for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system and are based in Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. and Fort Greely, Alaska.
He also said the agency is developing the capability to provide warfighters with the option of flying the GBIs using all three booster stages or provide a two-stage-like boost vehicle by not igniting the third stage.
“This approach will provide additional homeland security defense battle-space capability through shorter engagement times without the expense of a separate 2-stage boost vehicle development program.”
Syring said the MDA plans to test this capability in 2019 and thereafter it will be fielded on all boost vehicle configurations.
The MDA still plans to conduct an operational intercept flight in the fourth quarter of FY 2018, FTG-11, to demonstrate the GMD system’s capability to perform a two GBI salvo engagement of an ICBM-range target. In FTG-11 a three-stage CE-II Block 1 and three-stage CE-II salvo will attempt to intercept a test target launched again from the Reagan Test Site in Kwajalein.
The GBIs will be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
Syring also spoke to the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) project, which aims to improve reliability, improve in-flight communications, and enhance Combatant Commanders’ situational awareness of hit/kill assessment messages.
The RKV program intends the first controlled test vehicle flight test in FY 2020 (named GM CTV-03), an initial flight intercept test (FTG-17) planned for FY 2021, and a second intercept flight test (FTG-18) in FY 2022, Syring said in his prepared statement. The MDA plans to later deploy the RKV starting around 2022.
Syring clarified the agency’s focus on defending against North Korean capabilities in the hearing.
He said there is no comparison between Iran and North Korea in terms of the amount of testing of missile ranges and capability in the last six to eight months. “It’s night and day,” and MDA’s priorities focused on the North Korean threat are “exactly right,” Syring said.
However, the director noted the Defense Department should not forget about Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and that the Ballistic Missile Defense Review will look at both North Korea and Iran when assessing what capabilities the U.S. needs.
This review will include an examination of whether a potential east coast missile defense site is needed, if so where, and what it could provide to the warfighters.
Syring also seemed open to Congress appropriating additional funds to MDA for directed energy research.
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) noted the agency’s FY 2018 budget request reduced its directed energy funding by $50 million. The director replied that this is because of the larger defense budget submission premise that directed energy capabilities should be pulled across the department overall for multiple capabilities.
However, in response to a question from chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), Syring confirmed he did not advise cutting directed energy funding from the MDA budget request.
When asked about the agency’s plans to start looking into procuring a Homeland Defense Radar – Hawaii (HDRH), Syring said such a program would take about two years to build. This is only if the MDA is appropriated funds for it in 2019. The timeline includes conducting site surveys, finalizing a site, conducting an environmental impact study, and opening industry competition for the project.
The MDA requested $21 million to conduct source selection activities for the HDRH in the FY 2018 budget request (Defense Daily, May 23). The radar is meant to augment other sensors to mitigate the evolving threats to the missile defense system, optimize discrimination capability, and increase the defensive capability of the GBI’s for the enhanced defense of Hawaii, Syring said.