Breaking Defense:

Pentagon overseers have given the Missile Defense Agency the green light to take the next step in developing the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI), designed to shoot down hypersonic missiles before they begin the high-speed maneuvers that make them hard to engage, according to a senior MDA official.

Laura DeSimone, MDA executive director, told the Potomac Officers Club today that the Missile Defense Executive Board — led by Bill LaPlante, Defense Department acquisition czar, and Heidi Shyu, head of research and engineering — on April 21 signed off on initiation of GPI’s “technology development” phase.

“We have to mature multiple critical technologies to develop and deliver that weapons system, but it’s going to give us now the layered  defensive approach that we’ve had for years with ballistic missiles to the hypersonic threat as well,” DeSimone said.

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