PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

MISSILE DEFENSE BOOSTER FAILS TO RISE TO THE OCCASSION
The Missile Defense Agency’s Integrated Flight Test (IFT)-13C was aborted “after the inter­cep­tor mis­sile expe­ri­enced an anom­aly shortly before it was to be launched.” The tar­get, per­haps rep­re­sent­ing a North Korean ICBM hurtling toward a U.S. city, per­formed flaw­lessly.
Let’s be clear: This test was a big deal. Thomas Christie, the Pentagon’ Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, told Congress in February that the test would be “sig­nif­i­cant exer­cise of the Test Bed infra­struc­ture” and would address “a long-​​standing con­cern over tar­get pre­sen­ta­tion that has not yet been tested.“
Congress agreed: The FY 2005 Defense Appropriations Bill iden­ti­fies the test by name, say­ing that “Integrated Flight Test-​​13C sched­uled for August 200″ rep­re­sents an impor­tant mile­stone.

Accordingly, the con­fer­ees direct the Director of the Missile Defense Agency to pro­vide a report to the con­gres­sional defense com­mit­tees within 30 days of the con­clu­sion of IFT-​​13C, in both clas­si­fied and unclas­si­fied form, includ­ing a detailed assess­ment of the results of IFT-​​13C.

Can’t wait for that report. Each test costs about 100 mil­lion bucks.
I’ve posted a slightly obscene op-​​ed I wrote about alter­na­tive uses for Missile Defense Agency fund­ing over on Arms Control Wonk​.com
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists weblog has a com­ment, with a cou­ple of worth­while links.
Finally, MDA is not with­out a sense of irony. Yesterday, MDA awarded Boeing a $928 mil­lion con­tract for FY 05–07 for “con­struc­tion and non-​​construction efforts required to field the Ground-​​Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Block 2006 Capability Enhancement (CE) Program.“
Ideally, the “enhance­ment” in mind includes a booster that works. Or not.
–Jeffrey Lewis

December 15th, 2004 | Missiles | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.