After a contentious period when congressional committees tried to kill the final stage of the tri-national Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) panel wants an assessment of what technologies the Army wants for its future plans.
HASC released legislative language the Strategic Forces panel is expected to consider at the defense-authorization markup.
“The committee is aware that one of the frequent justifications for completion of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) Proof of Concept (PoC) was the harvesting of specific technologies for the modernization of the Patriot air and missile defense system,” the Strategic Forces panel said. “For example, in a letter to the congressional defense committees from then-Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, on November 30, 2012, the Secretary stated, “[t]he U.S. Army is already considering ways to link the knowledge gained from the tri-national MEADS PoC program to its future air and missile development plans.”
The U.S., German and Italian program has completed one successful intercept test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and is working toward a second this fall.
While Congress considered terminating U.S. involvement, a flurry of letters from the Defense Secretary and his counterparts in Germany and Italy talked about “economic damage” should the United States withdraw.
The language said with the final funding in place for the PoC, the committee is “anxious to learn what technologies will be harvested for Patriot modernization, at what date in the modernization program, and at what cost to take advantage of the significant U.S. taxpayer investment in PoC.”
The committee also wrote it was “disappointed” the information wasn’t included in the fiscal year 2013 national defense authorization act.
Since the Army is interested in evaluating potential technology as part of the results of the upcoming FT-2 test this fall, the Strategic Forces panel would direct the Army Secretary to provide an evaluation to the congressional defense committees within 90 days after the completion of the test, or by Feb. 15.
MEADS development is led by prime contractor MEADS International, a multinational joint venture headquartered in Orlando, Fla. Major subcontractors and joint venture partners are MBDA in Italy and MBDA’s LFK in Germany, and Lockheed Martin [LMT] in the United States. Lockheed Martin also produces the PAC-3 MSE missile used by the MEADS system.