http://www.space.com/spacenews/spacenews_businessmonday_031006.html
Monday, Oct. 6, 2003
Tight Test Schedule Ahead For Missile Defense Shield
By: Randy Barrett
Space News Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- Details are sketchy, but plenty of testing remains to be done
before the Pentagon christens its rudimentary missile defense shield - an
event scheduled to occur in September 2004.
"There are six to nine planned Ballistic Missile Defense System flight
tests, which includes Missile Defense Agency conducted tests, as well as one
PAC-3, conducted by the Army, and one Arrow conducted by Israeli Ministry of
Defense," said a Missile Defense Agency official.
The official said that most of the flights would involve intercepts of a
target warhead and will "test multiple sensor systems and battle,
control, command and communications." As well, he added, "there are
several additional system-wide command, control and communication tests
and war games planned before September '04."
There have already been sizable delays in the test schedule -- particularly in
the development of a new booster rocket to carry the kill vehicle into space.
Lockheed Martin of Bethesda, Md., and Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.,
are competing to produce the rockets and the Pentagon says it will use both
contractors if tests go well.
Orbital has successfully tested its booster twice this year and Lockheed
Martin is expected to try its rocket sometime this fall after some delays.
Philip Coyle, an analyst with the Center for Defense Information here, said he
expects two booster tests this fall -- Integrated Flight Tests (IFT) 13A and
13B. IFT 13C will be a radar test that will likely occur
in the winter. None of the flights will be intercept tests, Coyle said, but
will test subsystems of the rocket and kill vehicle.
The Pentagon will start shooting at a target with IFT 14, which Coyle thinks
will happen in the late winter.
"If other pieces slip [in the schedule] IFT 14 might not be until the
spring," Coyle said. The Pentagon canceled IFT 16 and replaced it
with IFT 16A, which will be a radar-characterization test but that's running
late, Coyle said, adding that the test now looks as if it will be conducted
between
September and October 2004.
"For now, all five tests are on the docket, but dates are subject to
change," a U.S. defense official said.
Matt Martin, assistant director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center
for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation here concurred with Coyle's assessment
of the overall test schedule. "It's looking awfully
tight," he said.
Congressional critics of the missile defense program are growing more uneasy
about the schedule. In an Oct. 1 statement, Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.)
expressed doubts about the test schedule and announced an effort to declassify
a new General Accounting Office (GAO) report which spells out specific
problems.
"We should be alarmed at the GAO's finding that 'a system-level
demonstration of the initial defensive capability will not be conducted prior
to the September 2004 fielding,'" Tierney said.
