The head of a House panel is expressing concern about levels of funding for ground-based interceptors (GBIs) that are part of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for national missile defense.
Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, said he is “deeply concerned” about Boeing‘s [BA] GMD system in Alaska and California, which is intended to protect the United States from long-range ballistic missiles.
“Back-to-back flight test failures this past year raise doubts about the reliability and effectiveness of this capability,” he said at a March 31 hearing, adding he questions President Barack Obama’s administration’s “long-term commitment to getting it right.”
Obama proposed cutting GMD funding by $185 million in fiscal year 2012, which starts Oct. 1. Turner is still concerned about a $445 million GMD funding reduction in FY ’10, and noted the out-year spending profile for GMD is $1 billion less than projected a year ago.
“With these levels of cuts, it is clear that something will be broke or something won’t get done,” he said. “I worry that these test failures may be a harbinger of further setbacks if we don’t make GMD a priority and devote the resources necessary to make it right.”
The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) plans to buy 52 GBIs, with 30 that are operational in Alaska and California and 16 that are slated for flight tests this decade. Turner is concerned that only six GBIs would be available for spares and testing from 2020 to 2032, and two of those spares may be consumed to compensate for the failed flight test in 2010.
MDA Director Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly predicted the number of GBIs will rise about 52.
“It is clear to me that there will be some increased number of GBIs that will be necessary,” he said. The change will likely be sought by the Pentagon next year in the FY ’13 budget, he said.
One of two recent ground-based interceptor test failures was due to a “quality-control problem” that has been fixed, he said. The other failure is being investigated “diligently” by a review board, he said.
“They are completing their analysis right now, it looks like we have a very good idea of what the failure mode was,” he said. “I need to have it verified and demonstrated which they will do through testing across the summer.”
“But that’s not enough,” he added. “We really need to have the industry team, the GMD team, demonstrate to us they’ve corrected it. So I have requested in this budget support for a flight test which tests a missile very rigorously without an intercept. But the purpose of it is to verify the resolution of these issues.”
O’Reilly said the two failed test flights, along with the addition of another previously unscheduled test and plans for repeating of a test, could lead to the MDA buying more than 52 GBIs.
“Right there indicates four GBIs that we hadn’t accounted to before,” he said about those four tests. “I propose that the best way to make this decision is as we do these tests over the next year, we determine what in fact is the failure, make the corrections as I said and then go back into production and make a decision based on that reliability information, again what is the acquisition objective for the GBIs and whether it should be adjusted and what is that adjustment.”