Missile Defense Interceptor
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Ground-based Missile Defense Interceptor
As most people have learned in the 20-plus years since the late president Ronald Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, shooting down an incoming ICBM even under the best of conditions is a daunting challenge.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HF24Dg01.html
And the US missile defense system is far from perfect. Phillip Coyle III, a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information and former assistant secretary of defense and director, operational test and evaluation, said this in January:
The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency has not had a successful flight intercept test with its Ground-based Missile Defense (GMD) system for three and a half years. In the most recent two flight-intercept tests, the interceptor never got off the ground. Nevertheless the GMD system is being deployed in Alaska and California. The MDA plans 20 or 30 more developmental flight-intercept tests before they will be ready for realistic operational testing. At the current rate of success it could take over 50 years before the system was ready to be tested under realistic operational conditions.
Even the few so-called successful tests of the GMD system are dubious. According to Coyle, flight-intercept tests have been conducted under artificial and unrealistic conditions. Examples include prior knowledge by the defender as to the time of attack, the type of attacking missile, its trajectory and intended target location, and the makeup of its payload. No real enemy would ever knowingly provide such information to the US military in advance of an attack.
As a result, while there have been 10 flight-intercept tests of the GMD system since 1999, five of which were successful, the GMD system has no demonstrated capability to defend the US under realistic operational conditions. In fact, the system has not successfully intercepted a single missile in its current configuration.
The Washington, DC-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation put out a news release noting that the past tests of the system prove an intercept is feasible only:
When operators know in advance the location of a single target missile, the date and time of its launch and its flight trajectory.
When a surrogate booster rocket launches the missile, which flies at slower than normal speed in daylight and good weather.
When the target re-entry vehicle is equipped with global-positioning technology and a radar beacon to send its position to a surrogate ground-control radar.
The past two times - December 2004 and February 2005 - the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) tried to attempt an intercept, the US rocket didn't even leave the launch pad. (For the latter, it turned out that the arms holding the missiles up in their silos weren't properly built for the salty environment in which they were fielded, so the MDA is replacing those components in all the silos.)
Furthermore, Samson notes, the radar system that is needed to help detect missile launches, the sea-based X-Band Radar (SBX), is still undergoing tests outside Hawaii - nowhere near its home port of Adak, Alaska. The satellite network being built to track missiles once they're launched - the Space-Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) - isn't planning its initial launch of two test satellites until next year, with the goal of getting the system up and running somewhere around 2012.
And the command and control system necessary to link everything together was cited in a recent report by the Pentagon's Inspector General's Office as having such poor network security that it very well could be hacked. That report proved so embarrassing that the Pentagon subsequently removed it from the inspector general's website.
However, there is one bit of good news. Samson said the program did have significant success in that last December the MDA held a flight test where the major goal was to get the rocket off the ground. That they were able to do.In mid-July of this year, North Korea tested a long-range ballistic missile, the Taepodong-2, in its early stages of development. This missile is believed to have the capability to reach Alaska and northern portions of the West coast of the United States. In response to preparations for that launch, the Bush administration placed its ground-based, mid-course missile defense system (GMD) on alert; its purpose is to protect the United States against one or a very few warheads that states hostile to the United States might deliver by long-range ballistic missiles.
Better look elsewhere for a better sys for our protection........
One observer has characterized these actions as representing a symmetrical international Kabuki dance: the North Koreans tested a missile with no idea whether or not it would function as intended, and the United States activated its missile defense system without any evidence that it had the capability to intercept the North Korean missile if it threatened the territory of the United States.
The North Korean Taepodong-2 failed within a minute of its launch, plunging into the Sea of Japan. However, it is highly likely that the U.S. GMD system would have been similarly unsuccessful in intercepting the North Korean missile had it approached Alaska or the west coast of the United States. The last successful developmental intercept test of GMD, under artificially scripted conditions whereby the velocity, characteristics and location of the missile were known in advance, was in October 2002; even under similarly scripted conditions, three subsequent attempts have failed.
A series of recent reports from the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service, and even from the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General and the Pentagon’s own Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, point out that the GMD system suffers from a number of critical deficiencies. These reports make it clear that the system has no proven operational capability; and currently there are no plans for operational tests – tests in actual combat conditions conducted by soldiers – of the system.
In addition, it would be cheaper and technologically easier to attack the United States by launching a cruise missile from a boat in or near a U.S. harbor, or transporting a crude nuclear weapon in a paneled truck across the U.S. border rather than using expensive and technically complex long-range missile technology. -
what are u talking about? "our protection?"
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due to the proliferation of long range SSM and the upcoming desire by our neighbours to acquire such capabilities.Originally posted by beavan:what are u talking about? "our protection?"
MINDEF is currently looking at upgrading our air defence umbrella which will incorporate ABM capabilities.
its my assumption that, at the next singapore aerospace 2008, air defence as well as ballistic defence would be a major feature as singapore goes shopping for such a system with tons of cash.
current systems available are mainly from russian and american source.. and a bit from european source.
while each have their merits... it remains to be seen which one would fit the SAF bill... or would DSTA and DSO be doing something behind the scene. -
I'm going for a mix of Israeli, Singaporean, Russian and American.
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Correct.....Threat list includes MRLs.....Ground-based Missile Defense Interceptor is one of the layered missile defence sys US has developed...But looking at its performances n testing,i think its not one of the sys we would one to have
Originally posted by beavan:what are u talking about? "our protection?" [/quote]
[quote]Originally posted by tripwire:
due to the proliferation of long range SSM and the upcoming desire by our neighbours to acquire such capabilities.
MINDEF is currently looking at upgrading our air defence umbrella which will incorporate ABM capabilities.
its my assumption that, at the next singapore aerospace 2008, air defence as well as ballistic defence would be a major feature as singapore goes shopping for such a system with tons of cash.
current systems available are mainly from russian and american source.. and a bit from european source.
while each have their merits... it remains to be seen which one would fit the SAF bill... or would DSTA and DSO be doing something behind the scene.
Singaporean?Originally posted by LazerLordz:I'm going for a mix of Israeli, Singaporean, Russian and American. -
knowing singapore, it'll be a mix of some very low tech stuff mixed with some SUPER high tech stuff.
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something like thrust-vectoring, active radar guided rocks?Originally posted by beavan:knowing singapore, it'll be a mix of some very low tech stuff mixed with some SUPER high tech stuff.