National Defense – Twenty-five years after the demise of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the Pentagon is once again taking a close look at the possibility of basing missile interceptors in space. Such a project would be technologically feasible, but would strain military budgets and potentially ignite an arms race, analysts say.
The Trump administration’s 2019 Missile Defense Review, released in January, said the Pentagon will “undertake a new and near-term examination of the concepts and technology for space-based defenses” to assess their potential in the evolving security environment.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities James Anderson said the analysis, which is expected to be completed later this year, will be comprehensive.
“That will certainly take into account a variety of different factors — the type of different architectures, the potential number of space-based interceptors,” he said during remarks at the Brookings Institution. “It will look at cost, feasibility, practicality, timelines, everything that you would expect from a robust study.”
Having a constellation of space-based interceptors, or SBIs, rather than relying on ground- and sea-based systems, could offer several advantages, defense officials have said.
“As rogue state missile arsenals develop, the space-basing of interceptors may provide the opportunity to engage offensive missiles in their most vulnerable initial boost phase of flight, before they can deploy various countermeasures,” the missile defense review said.
“Space-basing may increase the overall likelihood of successfully intercepting offensive missiles … and potentially destroy offensive missiles over the attacker’s territory rather than the targeted state,” it added.
