April 17, 2011
By Kenneth Kesner, The Huntsville Times
A Standard Missile-3 IA is launched from the USS O'Kane in a joint Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy test successfully conducted in the Pacific on Friday, April 15, 2011. The MDA recently awarded contracts to begin development of an all new, faster, smaller interceptor missile, the SM-3 IIB, that will work with other missile defense elements to destroy enemy missiles sooner after they launch. (AP Photo/Missile Defense Agency)
HUNTSVILLE -- In missile defense, as in so many things, sooner is better. Destroying an enemy missile as soon after launch as possible allows more time for other options, if needed, including time to take another shot at it.
The Missile Defense Agency last week awarded Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon three-year contracts worth more than $41 million each to begin planning an all-new interceptor, the Standard Missile 3 Block IIB, as part of a system to hit threatening missiles earlier in their flight.
The SM-3 Block IIB will also be cost-effective as it takes some of the burden off existing missile defense systems, such as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program, which are designed to destroy threats later in their flights, said MDA Director Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly.
"Everyone in Washington, I believe, is a strong supporter of the need for a very fast, small interceptor that complements the other missile defense interceptors that we have developed," O'Reilly said. "It doesn't replace them, but it adds a new capability that we haven't developed before."
Boeing is basing its SM-3 IIB concept development work in Huntsville, creating from 40 to 50 new positions, said Greg Hyslop, vice president, Boeing Strategic Missile & Defense Systems. The contract will help "stabilize" the company's high-tech work force after last month's announcement of possible layoffs due to changes in the GMD program, for which it has been prime contractor.
"We'll be looking across the enterprise and making sure we've got the people in these positions," he said, adding the company is excited to be part of developing a new U.S. interceptor.
"Having been on the only program that's ever intercepted a long-range ballistic missile - GMD, having designed that - we are fully aware of how difficult a problem that is. And what's going to be needed on a smaller-diameter interceptor to try to do that job."
Lockheed Martin will lead its SM-3 IIB work in Sunnyvale, Calif., and Raytheon in Tucson, Ariz., "but they're dependent on many different Huntsville contractors or businesses here to support them," O'Reilly said.
After a bid competition, the three companies were awarded contracts to work with MDA to define and assess configurations for the new missile and come up with an affordable plan. In 2013, one of the companies is to be selected to develop the rest of the SM-3 Block IIB system, fly the missile and go into production by the end of the decade.
MDA's budget request for that follow-on contract is more than $1.5 billion, O'Reilly said. These early concept definition contracts will be critical for confidence MDA has selected the missile plan most likely to deliver the capability needed.
At the same time the three companies work to conceive the new missile, MDA is directly funding research by the companies that will provide the underlying technology needed for propulsion, guidance, target "seekers" and more. Prime contractors have traditionally had to fund all the subcontractors below them at this phase, O'Reilly said.
Over the last 20 years, industry has reduced its investment in independent research and development of technology, he said, "so it's up to the government to make sure that we have built a technical environment that is conducive to the success of these programs."
The three contract teams will be able to use the results of this government investment as they build the proposals MDA will be evaluating in 2013.
"It also allows us to have direct contact with these individual companies that are developing these technologies," O'Reilly said. "So the government is more informed as we write our request for proposal in 2013."
That will also allow MDA to closely monitor at the earliest stages of the development.
"We've always learned over time that the best quality control is to design it into the missile," O'Reilly said. "In other words, make it a simple design to manufacture. That's going to be critical for who wins the competition for the completion of this development contract."
The SM-3 Block IIB is to be a smaller, faster, "highly deployable" missile that, in concert with radars, sensors and other missile defense elements being developed as part of Phase Four of the "Phased Adaptive Approach" to missile defense in Europe, will provide an early-intercept capability against medium- and intermediate-range and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
Those forward-based radars, launch sites and more need to be developed and in position for the new missile to be able to perform its early-intercept mission, and the PAA supports that.
"All of those forward-based sensors give us the ability to track a (threat) missile," O'Reilly said. "And now we just need to have a fast enough missile. If it's in the right place, the right location, it can intercept a large number of the missiles that we believe, in the future, we're going to see simultaneously launched at us."
Even if the Phased Adaptive Approach is changed or jettisoned, the new missile is a badly needed weapon in the defense arsenal, he said.
"Regardless of the approach that we take, this is a very valuable, very important capability that our country does not have today," O'Reilly said. "Any director of MDA, any administration and any combatant commander would want this capability."
The economies of an earlier interceptor like this in missile defense "are extremely attractive," he said. They cost approximately $10 million to $20 million apiece, but that's preventing defenders from having to shoot a $70 million missile interceptor later, so there are both operational and economic benefits to having this missile's capability.
"We believe that this is going to be an extremely attractive missile for applications around the world, not just U.S. applications. This is very exciting for us."