Examiner:
The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has outlined several upcoming tests designed to improve the ability of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system to protect the United States against long-range ballistic missiles.
Navy Vice Adm. James Syring, MDA’s director, said Jan. 19 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., that a GMD interceptor missile will try out its redesigned divert thrusters “later this month.” The interceptor will also attempt to distinguish an intermediate-range ballistic missile target from its decoys and other countermeasures, though no target shoot-down is planned.
Later this year, an interceptor will try to destroy an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) target armed with countermeasures for the first time. A year later, MDA will launch two interceptors against a single ICBM.
In 2018, MDA will conduct the first flight, a non-intercept test, of a redesigned version of the interceptor’s exo-atmospheric kill vehicle. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are working on different parts of the redesign. MDA wants to improve the reliability of the kill vehicle, which destroys an incoming warhead by colliding with it. And in a 2019 test, an interceptor with the redesigned kill vehicle will be programmed to use only two of its three stages, a potential option that could give warfighters more flexibility…
