The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering said the schedule for the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) interceptor aimed at hypersonic missile threats is slipping due to lower funding than planned.
“I think the schedule slipping is really dependent on the money we can get. So here’s the problem – we can lay out the program, say this is how long it’s going to take us to develop a capability. If you don’t give us the amount of money associated with a budget request associated with a schedule, by definition, things are going to slip,” Under Secretary Heidi Shyu told reporters during the NDIA Missile Defense Conference on April 16.
The Defense Department’s FY 2025 budget request for MDA seeks only $182 million to continue developing the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI), a reduction from the $209 million requested in FY ‘24 (Defense Daily, March 14).
The latest budget request also has $673 million in lower funding than previously planned in the FY ‘24 budget outlook for hypersonic defense over the following years (Defense Daily, March 18).
During a hearing on April 12, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, underscored GPI delays are part of $2.6 billion in MDA budget cuts from FY ‘25 to ’28 compared to the funding levels planned in the FY ‘24 budget.
During the hearing, MDA Director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins said these cuts are related to budget caps required in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
While Shyu said lower funding is pushing back GPI timelines, she also admitted competing priorities in DoD are affecting longer term funding and schedules beyond the FY ‘25 budget caps.
“Unfortunately, I think at the department, there’s other priorities we also need, in addition to missile defense, so that’s a higher-level decision than I made,” she said.
Lamborn also revealed MDA plans to downselect to one contractor for the GPI early as one of the ways to cut spending.
“In the case of the Glide Phase Interceptor, I think it’s important to note that this downselection is occurring five years earlier than planned and before the Preliminary Design Review is even held. I am extremely concerned that we will simply not have sufficient technical data to make an informed choice between competing concepts for this program,” he said.
During the conference on Tuesday, Collins confirmed to reporters the timeline for the GPI downselect is now by the end of the fiscal year.
“That’s the plan that they’re on, they’re on track,” Shyu added.
In 2022, MDA downselected to the current two competitors, RTX and Northrop Grumman [NOC], to continue refining their concepts (Defense Daily, June 24, 2022).
During the hearing, Collins said GPI is currently working with both competitors on the post-system requirements review and working to finalize designs and tech maturation.
“For each of their designs, there is a good amount of tech maturation of the design in the integration of the system that are being worked on,” he said.
Shyu also would not confirm estimates that Japan plans to contribute $1 billion for GPI as part of a cooperative development deal before an official announcement.
Last month, Collins said the U.S. and Japanese governments were close to finalizing a joint development and production deal with GPI (Defense Daily, March 8).
At the time, Collins said DoD hopes to sign an agreement on GPI work “in the coming months.”
Last year, former MDA head Vice Adm. Jon Hill first said the Pentagon DoD was exploring cooperative development and production on the GPI with Japan along the lines of an agreement of the Standard Missile-3 Block IIA. (Defense Daily, March 16, 2023).