By Marina Malenic
The Senate Armed Service Committee’s (SASC) version of the FY ’11 Defense Authorization Bill recommends withholding $25 million in funding for a medium-range air defense development effort due to a production break caused by faulty parts.
The Pentagon’s budget request included $858.9 million for procurement of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors.
“The committee notes that there is currently a production and delivery delay of more than three months for THAAD interceptors because of a pending failure review board investigation of a failed safety component, the Laser-Initiated Ordnance System optical block,” the SASC provision states. “Given this production delay, the committee recommends a reduction of $25.0 million…for THAAD production.
“This recommendation…reflects the fact-of-life delay in production and delivery, and the consequent inability of the program to execute the full level of requested funds within fiscal year 2011,” the bill states.
According to a Missile Defense Agency spokesman, the faulty parts have been investigated and fixed.
“The review board completed its work in early March 2010 and its recommendations have been incorporated in this initial buy of optical block switches,” Rick Lehner told sister publication Defense Daily recently via email. “There are no issues with safety. Initial production of THAAD interceptors is ongoing and will deliver through 2011.”
The program is scheduled for a production decision in July for follow-on procurement of batteries and interceptors, he added.
Prime contractor Lockheed Martin [LMT] praised the SASC’s “strong support” of the THAAD program.
“We look forward to working with our customers to deliver this important capability to the Warfighter,” a spokesperson for the company said via email.
Pentagon officials have recently taken contractors to task for producing poor-quality missile-defense products. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly most recently decried poor quality control of missile-defense products by industry and has withheld funding for current contracts. MDA recently halted work with Coleman Aerospace after one of the company’s target missiles malfunctioned and fell into the Pacific Ocean last December during a failed THAAD test.
O’Reilly has said that MDA is reviewing over $37 billion worth of contracts and plans to make changes, including changing cost-plus deals to fixed-price arrangements and opening up some contracts for competition. The general also said the review will weigh adding “defect clauses” to contracts.