Pentagon cancels three more missile defense tests
The Defense Department has cancelled three additional national missile defense flight-intercept tests, including one that experts say would have been the "dress rehearsal" for the Bush administration's planned fielding of part of the system in the autumn of 2004.
Now, only two flight-intercept tests remain between the most recent, failed test in December and the limited deployment some 20 months later. So far this year, the Missile Defense Agency has announced the cancellation of six planned intercept tests, four of which were originally scheduled to occur before any interceptors were fielded.
"The Missile Defense Agency has a lot riding on the next two flight intercept tests. It won't be easy to successfully conduct two complex tests involving new hardware and software, and perhaps with new objects in the target cluster as well," said former Pentagon testing director Philip Coyle.
Explaining the change, an agency spokesman cited "program data needs" and a busy schedule preparing for the deployment.
The tests have been politically charged, with Pentagon officials citing the test record of five successful intercepts in eight attempts as proof that a limited system is ready field as a test-bed, and critics questioning whether tests have been simplified or cancelled to ensure a successful record.
Recent Cancellations
The cancellations were reflected in the Pentagon's recently released 2004 budget request documents, which included a schedule of planned "Integrated Flight Tests," or IFTs, of its Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, which is being developed to destroy long-range enemy warheads in space.
The schedule shows that IFT-16-which would have been the 11th intercept test and which officials earlier this year said was scheduled to occur just prior to the system's deployment-is no longer planned.
Pentagon officials announced in January that three predeployment intercept tests (IFT-11, -12, -13) were cancelled, with the latter one replaced by two nonintercept flights (IFT-13A and IFT-13B) to test two prospective replacements to an unsatisfactory missile booster.
The remaining two predeployment intercept tests are IFT-14 and IFT-15, which will involve one or both of the two possible follow-on boosters, according to the agency.
"IFT-16 was to have been the dress rehearsal for deployment," said Coyle, the former assistant secretary of defense in charge of testing during most of the Clinton administration.
It's "the big one before the deployed test bed," said Matt Martin, an analyst with the Center for Nonproliferation and Arms Control.
Scheduling and "Program Data Needs" Cited
Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner said in an e-mail that IFT-16's cancellation, and a plan to focus on an already scheduled nonintercept flight test of the system's radar around that time, "better meets the program data needs during the summer/fall [2004] when we are simultaneously installing interceptors at Fort Greely and VAFB [Vandenberg Air Force Base] and doing system integration check-out and testing."
The agency is renaming the nonintercept test, which was called Radar Characterization Flight 2, IFT-16A, Lehner said.
Lehner's comments, Martin said, suggest the deployment goal of October 2004, set officially by President Bush in December, might be interfering with the system's testing program.
"I can certainly imagine that they are having trouble trying to deploy and test at the same time and I think that in itself points out the weakness of the plan. [The plan] says you've got to test, because they have only succeeded in the most basic tasks at this time. Now they're saying you can't test because we have this political mandate to deploy," he said.
Martin added the cancellation might, intentionally or not, support the deployment objective by eliminating the risk of a test failure just prior to the deployment and presidential elections.
"IFT-16 was planned in the fall of 2004, which happily, coincidentally is right in the middle of the election season," he said.
Lehner appeared to dismiss the significance of IFT-16 as a test run, saying the system's capabilities already have been validated in previous testing, and would be further tested with a new booster or boosters in IFT-14 and IFT-15.
"The GMD system's capability has already been demonstrated for initial operations in previous and ongoing intercept tests, ground tests, modeling and simulation and numerous exercises," he said.
The budget documents also show tests IFT-19 and IFT-20 also have been scrubbed. They would have occurred after the scheduled deployment.
Lehner said, "It is likely the test objectives from those flights will be consolidated into earlier tests."
Tougher Testing Ahead
Martin charged the intercept-testing regime so far has lacked realistic complexity.
"They haven't done anything really to stress the system yet. All they've really proven right now is the hit-to-kill ability … that's certainly impressive, but they aren't doing anything to move forward," he said.
He said two of the eight completed tests were repeats of previously failed tests and the most recently failed test "as I understand it had nothing that added any complexity to the system."
Lehner wrote that "In order to develop more operationally realistic tests" after 2004, officials are considering redesigning some tests to try intercepting two enemy decoy warheads aimed at a single target or two targets.
They also are considering launching targets from the air, rather than the ground, so the system could be tested against targets from a "more realistic direction," he said.
"The test program is and will be flexible over time and will be adjusted from time to time to take advantage of new and/or improved technology and also to make efficient use of expensive and/or scarce resources for each and every test, as well as construct the tests to take advantage of new capabilities demonstrated or projected by potential adversaries," he said.