Third Interceptor Site: Possible East Coast locations for an additional ground-based interceptor site are being examined by the Missile Defense Agency. (US Missile Defense Agency)

Nov. 26, 2013  By PAUL McLEARY – Defense news

WASHINGTON — While the debate continues over how soon Iran or North Korea might be able to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could strike the US mainland, the US government is forging ahead with controversial plans to beef up its domestic missile defense capabilities well before any threat has materialized.

In September, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced that in addition to the two ground-based interceptor (GBI) sites it operates in Alaska and California, it has started looking at five potential locations to house a third site in the eastern US.

Inspecting a variety of sites will allow the Pentagon to begin environmental assessments if a skeptical Congress eventually reaches agreement on the project and finds the necessary funding.

The prospective sites at Fort Drum, N.Y.; Camp Ethan Allen Training Site, Vt.; Naval Air Station Portsmouth, Maine; Camp Ravenna, Ohio; and the Fort Custer Training Center, Mich., are all on federal land. The existing GBI sites at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., house a total of 30 missiles, with another 14 to be added at Fort Greely by 2017 at a cost of about $1 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that expanding the ground-based midcourse defense system to the East Coast would cost about $3.5 billion over the next five years.

Boeing acts as the prime contractor that manages the Pentagon’s program to defeat long-range missile threats, while Raytheon and Orbital Sciences have teamed to build both the interceptors and rockets.

The issue of an additional GBI site on the East Cost sparked controversy on Capitol Hill this summer, as Senate Democrats pushed back against congressional Republicans who again included money for the site in their 2013 defense budget markup. The Republicans also attempted to fund the third site in the 2012 budget, but Senate Democrats defeated the measure.

In June, the the Raytheon-made GBI system failed another MDA test, making it the fourth failed test of the capability — each costing about $70 million — since 2010, but the Pentagon insists that it will keep trying.

While the interceptor sites remain embroiled in controversy, several long-term missile tracking and interceptor technologies are ensnared in Pentagon red tape.

Since the late 1990s, the Army has been working on a variety of tethered aerostats that would be capable of tracking incoming missiles. After years of testing, Raytheon won the bid to actually design and build the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) in 2005.

JLENS can reach an altitude of 10,000 feet and stay aloft for 30 days, and its 360-degree sensor package can scan the air, land and sea for up to 340 miles.

But budget pressures and long development times caused the Pentagon to radically scale back the program — which has completed its recent battery of tests — in the fiscal 2013 defense budget. The Army said it would build just two JLENS orbits instead of the 16 it originally wanted, saving the service an estimated $1.75 billion over the next half decade.

That hasn’t stopped the Army from preparing to send the JLENS to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in 2014 to begin three years of tests in the highly congested airspace, roadways and sea lanes of the National Capital Region.

But the inability of Congress to pass a federal budget is putting that testing program at risk. In written testimony Oct. 23 to the House Armed Services Committee, Army acquisition chief Heidi Shyu said that without a full defense budget in 2014, JLENS “cannot meet scheduled construction plans.”

While JLENS continues to exist in a state of suspended — but tethered — animation, the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) developed by the US, Italy and Germany for about US $3.4 billion — with more than $2 billion coming from the United States — continues to move forward. In early November, MEADS, a 360-degree radar and missile system designed to knock down missile threats, intercepted and destroyed two targets simultaneously at the White Sands Missile range in New Mexico.

The only hitch is that after spending billions to develop the technology, the US Army has said it will continue to modernize and upgrade its existing Patriot missile batteries instead of buying MEADS, and the November test was its last.

But the program isn’t completely dead. The Army is assessing potential technologies it might want to “harvest” from MEADS and has promised to submit a report to the Pentagon in the spring outlining what elements of the program it might be able to use.

While all of this work is being done in the face of perceived threats, some perhaps inconvenient geostrategic facts are emerging. In November, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies released a report saying that Iran “is unlikely to have such a weapon before the end of the decade.”

Looking at efforts similar to Iran’s program to develop long-range ICBMs, the study concluded it’s “reasonable to conclude that Iran is unlikely to move on to producing an operational intermediate-range [missile], powered by a 20- to 25-ton first-stage motor within the next five years,” and “an ICBM powered by a first-stage motor in excess of 30 tons would likely require an additional five to 10 years, if not more.”

Tel Aviv, Israel (UPI) Sep 25, 2012 Spacewar.com

The crucial first test-firing of Israel's Arrow-3 interceptor missile, designed to destroy ballistic weapons, reportedly has been postponed despite efforts to boost the Jewish state's missile defenses amid threats of pre-emptive strikes against Iran.

The development of the Arrow-3 program, which is being carried out by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing of the United States, is a year behind schedule.

The first full-scale test, firing the two-stage missile against a simulated target, had been planned for this month but the U.S. weekly Space News reported the flight has been postponed until the end of the year.

IAI declined to say what the problem is but Israel's Globes business daily reported that it appears to be serious because the test missile has been returned to IAI for unspecified repairs from the launch site at Palmachim Air Base on the Mediterranean coast south of Tel Aviv.

Israel's national news agency reported in August that the new Block 4 generation of interceptors, radars and technologies for synchronizing Arrow-3 with U.S. systems is being installed in Israeli batteries, a process that could take some time.

Arrow-3, largely funded by the United States since the program was launched in 1988, is designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles, which for the Israelis these days means Iranian or Syrian weapons.

It will be the top level of a four-tier missile defense shield, Israel's most advanced anti-missile system, able to intercept hostile missiles in space outside Earth's atmosphere. It will be able to engage at altitudes double that of the Arrow-2, the current mainstay for covering against ballistic missiles, using detachable warheads that become killer satellites that seek out targets and crash into them.

This highly maneuverable system uses a lighter missile than Arrow-2, not only extending Arrow-3's operational altitude but the missile's range as well.

The Israeli military's website says the mobile Arrow interceptors include a number of sensors able to identify and intercept incoming missiles with extreme accuracy. These are hooked into long-range, ground-based Super Green Pine radar systems which can identify and track missiles and a new missile control center linking the Arrow batteries, collectively known as the "Defensive Sword" unit.

The semi-mobile radar unit is an advanced version of the EL/M-2080 Green Pine system used in Arrow-1 and 2. It's built by Elta, a subsidiary of IAI's Electronics Group. The various components are controlled by the mobile Citron Tree battle management center, built by Israel's Tadiran Electronics.

Since all these components are mobile to one degree or another, the system as a whole is more likely to survive pre-emptive strikes than fixed systems.

Arrow-3 is due to become operational in 2014 but it's not clear whether the current problems will delay that.

Arrow-1 was deployed in 2001 and replaced by Arrow-2. That system remains operational and will be maintain as a backup for Arrow 3, doubling Israel's chances of nailing hostile ballistic missiles.

The new variant is considered to be a far more advanced weapon than the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot, a long-range air-defense system built by Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.

Israel's air defense shield has been integrated with U.S. systems during recent joint exercises to combat missile attacks.

Overall responsibility for Arrow lies with the U.S. Missile Defense Organization in Washington and the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

IAI's MLM Division is the prime contractor. Apart from Boeing, which manufactures some 35 percent of the missile, key U.S. subcontractors include Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, which makes the radar seeker, and Raytheon, which produces the infrared seeker.

Boeing is expected to produce at least half of the Arrow-3 interceptors in the United States, with Israel handling the integration.

It sees prospects for export deals, something both Boeing and IAI are keen to promote as foreign sales of weapons systems have become of paramount importance to defense contractors amid widespread defense cutbacks.

India would like to buy an Arrow battery and purchased a Green Pine radar system in 2001. South Korea's also reported to be interested.

However, so far the Americans have blocked export initiatives, citing concerns regarding the Missile Technology Control Regime that limits the proliferation of ballistic missile technology.

February 16, 2012: STRATEGY PAGE

For the seventh time, India successfully tested its anti-missile system, intercepting a Prithvi ballistic missile. The AAD interceptor missile was fired from an island 70 kilometers off the coast. The system uses two types of interceptors. The Prithvi Air Defense (PAD) missile is the larger of the two and is used for high altitude (50-80 kilometers up) interception. The short range Advanced Air Defense (AAD) missile is used for low altitude (up to 30 kilometers) intercepts. The two missiles, in conjunction with a radar system based on the Israeli Green Pine (used with the Arrow anti-missile missile), are to provide defense from ballistic missiles fired as far as 5,000 kilometers away. This will provide some protection from Pakistani and Chinese missiles. A third interceptor, the PDV, is a hypersonic missile that can take down missiles as high as 150 kilometers and is still in development. India is the fifth nation to develop such anti-missile technology.

The Indian system has been in development for over a decade. Ten years ago, India ordered two Israeli Green Pine anti-ballistic missile radars. That equipment was used six years ago in a successful Indian test, where one ballistic missile was fired at another, incoming, one. The Israeli Green Pine radar was originally developed for Israel's Arrow anti-ballistic missile system. Arrow was built, in cooperation with the United States, to defend Israel from Iranian and Syrian ballistic missiles. India has since developed, with Israel, the Swordfish radar, which has similar capabilities to the Green Pine and has been operational for two years. Swordfish is part of a system that integrates data from satellites and other sources, in order to detect and track incoming missiles.

The interceptor missiles and the fire control systems were designed and built in India, although more Israeli technology may have been purchased to speed things along. India wanted to buy the entire Israeli Arrow system, but the United States refused to allow the sale (which involved a lot of American technology.) The Indian ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) system is supposed to become operational in two years.

China and Pakistan could only defeat the Indian ABM defenses by firing more missiles, at the same time, than the Indians could handle. It's also possible to equip warheads with decoys, in an attempt to get the interceptor missile to miss. Israel has technology designed to deal with these decoys, and India can probably purchase that. But against an overwhelming number of incoming missiles, some are going to get through.