Raytheon Co. [RTN] will use the relatively low cost of the Network Centric Airborne Defense Element (NCADE) to help sell it to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Congress in a newly brutal military budget environment, a senior Raytheon official said.
Other tactics in the effort to keep the NCADE missile defense system funded include stressing the fact that it uses many already-developed hardware elements, and that it can be launched by military forces that already possess the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) system, said Mike Booen, Reytheon vice president of advanced missile defense and directed energy weapons.
And beyond selling NCADE to the cash-strapped U.S. military, Raytheon also is receiving inquiries from abroad, with foreign militaries interested in its very, very attractive price” for entry into missile defense capabilities.
While still in development, NCADE could be in warfighters’ hands by 2012, Booen said in an interview with Space & Missile Defense Report.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has warned that severe cuts may be coming in many defense programs, announcing that the spending spigot that was turned on with the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks will be turning off soon.
And Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and co-chairman of the Congressional Missile Defense Caucus, predicted that a savage $3 billion will be axed out of the total $9.6 billion annual missile defense spending level, in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, which President Obama will send to Capitol Hill soon. While already developed missile defense systems may receive something close to full funding, systems still in development may be cut deeply, with Franks predicting that some programs may see their funds drop by half or more from the current fiscal 2009 levels.
Some Democratic lawmakers favoring cuts have criticized the Airborne Laser, Ground-based Midcourse Defense and European Missile Defense programs led by The Boeing Co. [BA]. The legislators have called for more certainty and less risk in developing programs.
There, NCADE comes off well, because many of its components are already developed. “It’s definitely mature,” he sad.
Booen said NCADE is progressing well, on track to deliver 20 rounds to the military by 2013. And NCADE will transition well to the services, because they already know how to launch AMRAAMs, he said, and “they already have the equipment to load” NCADEs into launchers, so the military can avoid many costs of purchasing new hardware.
“Anybody who can launch an AMRAAM can launch an NCADE,” he said.
NCADE missile interceptors will come in for less than $1 million a round, Booen said. Further, they hit enemy missiles in their boost-ascent phase, before the enemy weapon can spew forth multiple warheads, decoys or confusing chaff, so there is no need for American forces to use multiple interceptors.
While the Pentagon faces tough times financially, there is interest in NCADE overseas, Booen said.
While some nations may not be able to afford high-end, sophisticated missile defense systems such as the Aegis-Standard Missile sea-based system, NCADE could provide them with an opportunity to obtain missile defense capabilities for a much lower cost, he said.
As well, NCADE — which is mounted on aircraft — can be fitted to many of the same planes and other aircraft that U.S. and foreign governments already have in their inventories, with no need to buy any special, single-purpose missile defense aircraft, Booen said. Buying NCADE can mean a country will “avoid hundreds of millions of dollars” in collateral hardware expenses, he said.
“We have had some formal inquiries from several countries,” Booen said in response to a question. But, he added, “I can’t expand on that.” He would say only that they are “several countries familiar with AMRAAM.”
He noted that NCADE is designed to take down short- and medium-range missiles, the sort that threaten many smaller nations, who don’t see themselves in the cross-hairs of intercontinental ballistic missiles that endanger large nations such as the United States.
Regardless of whether procurement officers are in the Pentagon or overseas, “People are going to be looking for value,” Booen said.
Domestically, Raytheon is marketing NCADE to MDA, the Air Force and the Navy.
Some leaders of defense acquisition programs and their supporters in Congress have pitched the Obama administration to fund those programs fully, noting that those programs already are in production and therefore qualify as “shovel-ready” — able to provide immediate support to the devastated U.S. economy while preserving high-paying factory jobs.
“We have a shovel-ready system,” Booen said, adding that Raytheon is pitching MDA on NCADE by stressing its low cost, reliability and speed to market in just the next few years.
Responding to a question we asked, Booen had a bone to pick with those who say that any plane launching an NCADE interceptor must be within 100 miles of the launch site of the enemy missile.
“We do not have to be within 100 miles,” he said, adding that military forces can have planes packing NCADE interceptors flying midway between the launch site and the target, observing that those interceptors “can go very high” to nail the enemy weapon along its ballistic trajectory.
Currently, Raytheon is working under a $10 million contract supporting the NCADE program that MDA awarded in September.
While Raytheon currently is focused on finishing development of NCADE as an aircraft-based asset, Booen was asked whether the company might move to develop a land-vehicle-based version of NCADE.
“I haven’t looked at it too much,” Booen said. But, he noted, there is a version of the AMRAAM that is vehicle based.
Many Democratic missile defense critics in Congress have said those systems should face more testing, Booen said if NCADE receives solid financing for fiscal 2010, that will permit it to move ahead with “a graduated test program” by 2011.