The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) plans to conduct the next intercept test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system “early this calendar year,” according to an MDA official.
“We’re currently conducting pre-flight qualification testing and coordinating test dates,” MDA spokesman Christopher Johnson said Jan. 4.
Photo: Missile Defense Agency
During the test, an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California will try to intercept an ICBM target fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The test will be GMD’s first attempt to intercept an ICBM.
GMD, whose prime contractor is Boeing [BA], is designed to destroy long-range ballistic missiles in their midcourse phase of flight. The system has operational interceptors deployed at Fort Greely in Alaska and at Vandenberg.
Meanwhile, as part of an effort to make GMD’s interceptor more reliable, MDA tentatively plans to conduct a preliminary design review of a Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) “within the next two months,” Johnson said.
Vice Adm. James Syring, MDA’s director, told Congress last year that the RKV, which is being developed by a team of major defense firms, will incorporate “on-demand communications between the kill vehicle and the ground, a wide-field-of-view seeker, improved data processing and discrimination algorithms, and enhanced survivability.”
The GMD efforts come as North Korea reportedly prepares to flight-test an ICBM that could hit the United States. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Jan. 3 that U.S. missile defenses are ready to protect the United States despite GMD’s troubled test history.
“This is a system that we continue to work on, continue to develop, but we’re confident in our ability to protect the homeland,” Cook told reporters.
According to a report last year by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a longtime critic of U.S. missile defense programs, only a third of GMD’s intercept attempts have been successful since the system was deployed in 2004. But during the most recent test, which occurred in June 2014, GMD intercepted an intermediate-range ballistic missile target.