The United States could gain a premier land-based missile defense interceptor, quickly and at low cost, merely by making the currently sea-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors land-based assets as well, according to Mike Booen, Raytheon Co. [RTN] vice president of advanced missile defense and directed energy weapons.
In surveying the immense overall U.S. missile defense system, the SM-3 is proven to work well with other parts of the total multilayered missile defense system, he noted.
The Standard Missile-3 has an illustrious record, including use with a modified system to shoot down an out-of-control U.S. intelligence satellite that had a large tank filled with toxic hydrazine propellant. Experts feared if the satellite plunged into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled reentry, the spacecraft might plummet into a populated area and spew the toxic hydrazine on people.
But Booen is talking about a less exotic new role for the interceptors.
At a time when the military is seeking to increase both efficiency and effectiveness of the multifaceted missile defense system, the goal now is to have any incoming enemy missile taken down by any shooter operating with data from any sensor, Booen noted in an interview today with Space & Missile Defense Report.
One smoothly efficient way to obtain more capability without the Pentagon laying out huge development costs is to use a missile defense asset that already is developed and performing brilliantly, not only in its own performance but also in its ability to link with various sensors, Booen said.
A virtue of the SM-3 is its flexibility, where it can work with various sensors, including the Aegis system now mounted on ships, or the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. THAAD is land-based already, so the SM-3 interceptors moving onto land would pair well with it.
The quickest way to bring the SM-3 ashore is to emplace vertical launch system tubes (VLS) in the ground, he said. Mark 41 VLS tubes are common on ballistic missile defense ships.
This move already has been tried, successfully, with VLS tubes being used at the White Sands Missile Range, N.M., in the so-called Desert Ship.
And what are chances this move will bear fruit?
The Missile Defense Agency already is discussing the possibility with combatant commanders to see how well it would fit with warfighters’ needs, Booen said.
Another possibility is that SM-3s could become part of a mobile system on land, but that would “take more development,” he said.
Because the SM-3 already is developed, with that expense long ago covered, it gives the military an opening to obtain an elegant, upper-tier missile interceptor that nonetheless is “really affordable,” Booen said. “The government’s already made the investment,” so the main cost here would be “buying rounds at marginal cost” of producing each additional interceptor, he observed.
He spoke as the Missile Defense Agency and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics held a missile defense conference nearby.
Many participants in that conference noted that missile defense systems are coming out of a purely developmental phase, into a more operational era.
“We build the missiles, we build the radars, we build a large fraction of the fire control, so this seems like a natural progression, adding combat power and interceptors for the short- and medium-range, long-range threat” while placing the interceptors on land, Booen said.
This new land-based system would provide the warfighter with a tremendous X-band long-range radar, ideal for annihilating many medium-range, intermediate-range threats.
While competition is sharpening as predictions abound that President Obama will cut defense spending, it would be tough for a competitor to beat the SM-3, Booen said, adding that “anything else you would propose” would have to be developed first, and expensive proposition.
Booen noted that Raytheon is well suited to this quest to move SM-3s into new roles.
“We’ve been building tactical missile systems for decades, and this is the same evolution that we’ve seen with tactical weapons,” he said.
Land-based SM-3 will give warfighters what they now seek, including an any-shooter, any-sensor choice, with a shoot-look-shoot capability, Booen observed.
And, he noted, there is no competing asset in this area.