The Missile Defense Agency’s acquisition plan for the newest interceptors to defend the U.S. from ballistic missiles is flexible enough to potentially use two contractors to build them faster while it may be possible to accelerate development of hypersonic defense systems, the director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) told a House panel recently.
House Armed Services’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) asked MDA director Vice Adm. Jon Hill if it made sense to start replacing the 44 older Ground Based Interceptors (GBIs) in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system with the newer Next Generation Interceptors (NGI) that MDA is developing if funded to do so, rather than just adding 20 on top of the existing 44 missiles. He also inquired into extending the current competitors into production and not end at the current design phase.
Hill said the agency’s plan will allow for those kinds of options.
“When we laid out the acquisition plan, we thought through all that, we wanted to leave ourselves enough flexibility to give the nation options.”
Hill said while the government reference architecture plans to emplace the first NGI in 2028, “Both companies are running towards a ‘27 timeframe, which is great. The power of competition does work.”
He also said along the way to the first deployment of NGIs, “ we will make decisions on inventory. Right now the acquisition plan was basically what it was, you know, four years ago, which was to add 20. And so that was the starting point for the acquisition plan.”
However, “what’s great about carrying two [competitors], the nation has the ability to go beyond the Critical Design Review, you could have two production lines, if you want to really build out capacity. You could neck down to one supplier at that point and have a single production line, you can build the 20, you can add to the 44, or you can replace some numbers of those and then increase more as you go. So it’s a very flexible acquisition strategy. And I think those decisions do not have to be made today,” Hill said.
GMD aims to defend the U.S. homeland from ballistic missile threats from North Korea. In 2021, MDA chose teams led by Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] to start initial technology development and risk reduction work for the NGI. Competition is expected to last at least through the Critical Design Review phase (Defense Daily, March 23, 2021).
Hill also agreed with Lamborn it is possible to not only use two contractors to build NGIs faster or in greater amounts, but also to produce two variants for different threats.
“Yes, sir. And, in fact, whenever we talk about just interceptors, always like to go back to the total system. The ground-based weapons system itself is designed to handle basically the three variants that are in the ground today, plus two new variants. And, so again, we built in the flexibility so that we can make decisions at the right time,” he said.
However, Hill said for now the agency needs to work its ways through Preliminary Design Review (PDR) later this year and gain a “high confidence that we can in fact close the design” before moving on to Critical Design Review, followed by a decision to downselect to one producer or retain two.
“Those decisions are open to the nation.”
The current GBIs are divided, starting with the oldest systems, into Block 1s with CE-1 kill vehicles and C1 boosters, Block 2As with CE-II kill vehicles and C1 boosters, and Block 2Bs with CE-II Block 1 kill vehicles and C2 boosters.
In 2022, Hill told the Senate Armed Services Committee the Pentagon plans to decide exactly how many NGIs to procure around 2024, following PDR (Defense Daily, May, 23, 2022).
MDA has already built 20 new silos to house the NGIs at the Fort Greely, Alaska GMD site, which it has been using for the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) to upgrade parts of current GBIs.
Separately, Hill also indicated he would welcome funding to accelerate the deployment of the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) to counter hypersonic weapons after they make it through risk reduction and Milestone A to gain more confidence about any opportunities to accelerate the program.
In 2021, MDA awarded contracts to Raytheon Technologies [RTX], Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] to develop and refine their concepts for GPI (Defense Daily, Nov. 22, 2021).
Last year MDA then downselected to Raytheon and Northrop Grumman to continue refining their conceots (Defense Daily, June 24, 2022).
Lamborn said his top priority this year is accelerating American hypersonic capabilities and disapproved how the FY 2024 budget request reaches an Initial Operational Capability for GPI around 2035. He argued that timeline is too late given the threats.
“Only in Washington, D.C., does a missile development program take 13 years, and I don’t think it takes that long in Beijing, Moscow or Pyongyang. So, Vice Adm. Hill, given sufficient funding, what’s the earliest that MDA believes it could get a glide phase interceptor program to initial operational capability.”
“We laid out the plan, and we worked out within the department. We’re very early in the program, chairman. So – to kind of level-set where we are, we’re not at Milestone A yet, we should be kicking into that next phase, which is all about the risk reduction. And that is where we will really build our confidence to be able to accelerate the program.”
However, Hill confirmed that “I believe that we can pull it earlier. It is certainly a funding challenge, but we’ll continue to work closely within the department to pull it as left as possible, because I agree with you that out in the mid 30s is almost irrelevant. We are not meeting the threat.”
During the hearing, Lamborn also pressed John Hill, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space and Missile Defense, on how making GPI and hypersonic sensing deploy faster should be a higher priority.
Secretary Hill responded the process will get to the point of potentially allowing faster deployment.
“I think we’re going to have a lot of learning this year as Adm. Hill spoke to in terms of the GPI program and moving into this risk reduction. And that’s going to give us information that would help make a more confident decision. If you want to move it to the left, we still have the space to move it to the left. So coming forward in that program, and that’s an option, you want to keep open to do that as you look at the threat,” Secretary Hill said.