An interesting question regarding testing of the Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) national missile defense system is whether or not the system gas ever been intercept tested at night.  That is, has the GMD system ever attempted to intercept a target that was not directly illuminated by the Sun?  As the table below shows, the answer is yes, but not successfully.

The GBI interceptor launch (from Kwajalein) during the only GMD test in which the interceptor was launched at night, IFT-10, conducted on December 11, 2002.    (http://www.mda.mil/global/images/system/gmd/ift103.jpg)

The table shows the launch locations and times (extracted from MDA press releases and news reports) for the fifteen intercept tests of both prototype and operationally-configured GMD ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs).    Data for intercepts claimed as successful are in black and data in red is for failed intercept attempts.  As the table shows, the latest interceptor launch time for a successful intercept is 3:19 pm local time (IFT-7).  Taking into account the relative time and location of the target and interceptor launches, it is clear that all the successful intercept attempts took place with the target directly illuminated by the Sun.

There is one intercept attempt that clearly took place at night (IFT-10), in which the interceptor was launched at about 8:45 pm local time and in a direction generally heading away from the Sun.  However, the intercept attempt failed when the kill vehicle failed to separate from the final booster stage.

Two other intercept attempts were conducted in which the interceptor launch would have occurred shortly before local sunset, IFT-13c and IFT-14.  However, in both these cases, the interceptor failed to launch.  Without knowing where the intercepts were planned to take place (and I haven’t tried to find out),one cannot be certain if the targets would have been sunlit, but give the targets’ launch locations (Kodiak) and typical intercept altitudes (250 km) in earlier tests, it seem likely they would have been.

                (Click on Table for more readable version)

Location Key:      VN = Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

                                   KD = Kodiak, Alaska

                                   KW = Kwajalein Atoll.

All times are local (either standard or daylight savings, whichever is in effect).

Kodiak is four hours behind east coast time.

Kwajalein does not use daylight saving time and is 17 hours ahead of EST and 16 ahead of EDT.

One of the most significant deficiencies of the current Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) national missile defense system is its lack of radars that can even attempt to gather data for discrimination purposes.  The core ground-based sensors of the GMD system are four (eventually six) upgraded early warning radars (UEWRs), as shown on the map below (click on it for a larger image).  However, because of their low operating frequencies and correspondingly small bandwidths, these radars have essentially no discrimination capabilities. 

Figure 1.  Current GMD radars.  The base map is from the 2012 Ballistic Missile Defense Review, showing theoretical coverage of the GMD system against Iran.  Aegis radars are not shown (the TPY-2s in Israel and Qatar are not formally part of the GMD system).

These UEWRs are supplemented by forward-deployed TPY-2 and Aegis radars and by a single large Sea-Based X-Band (SBX) radar.  However these radars have significant limitations.  The forward-based radars have only limited ranges against warhead targets and are primarily useful for tracking missile targets in the early phases of their flights.  The SBX, while a large and powerful radar, was built primarily for test purposes and lacks the reliability and hardening of an operational system and has only a limited electronic scan field of view.  Last year the SBX’s operating budget was drastically slashed and it was placed in a limited operations and testing status.  Moreover, there is only one SBX, and thus it cannot cover the entire country.

In the last year, there has been a series of calls for building and deploying new X-band radars intended to provide discrimination support to the GMD system.  The September 2012 National Academy of Sciences Report called for five new “stacked” TPY-2  radars, each using two TPY-2 antennas stacked one on top of the other, to be built and deployed alongside existing upgraded early warning radars.  A February 2013 Missile Defense Agency Report to Congress, on the other hand, argued that other radar concepts, “such as a single phased array radar or X-band dish radars” could provide greater capability at a lower cost than the NAS’s proposed stacked TPY-2 radars.[1]  In May 2013 Congressional testimony, Lt. General Richard Formica (Commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command and Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense) stated that an X-band radar would “certainly” be part of any east coast GMD deployment.[2] In early June 2013, former MDA Director Trey Obering called for upgrading the X-band Ground-Based Radar Prototype (GBR-P) currently located on Kwajalein Atoll and moving it to the U.S. East Coast.[3] 

Table 1 below compares various actual, proposed or hypothetical X-band radars.  With the exception of the last radar, these radars are all members of the Raytheon’s “family”of X-band phased array radars that utilize essentially the same basic transmit/receive module technology, which facilitates comparisons between them.  These are the current TPY-2 forward-based and THAAD radars, the stacked TPY-2 proposed in the NAS Report,  the current SBX, the never-built GBR proposed by the Clinton Administration,  the current GPR-P, and three possible upgrades to the GBR-P, and a hypothetical new radar with a detection range similar to the SBX but with a  larger electronic field of view.  The last radar in the table is an existing X-band dish radar.

The Raytheon X-band “family” can be divided into two main branches.  One branch consists of the current TPY-2 radars.  These radars are used both as the fire control radar for the THAAD theater ballistic missile defense system and as forward-based radars (currently in Japan, Israel, Turkey and Qatar as shown on the map above).  These radars are designed to be air-transportable and are thus relatively small (9.2 m² antenna area).  They are intended to be able to carry out a wide range of radar missions, including surveillance, tracking, discrimination and fire control.  The NAS proposed “stacked” TPY-2 radars would use two TPY-2 antennas, one on top of the other.

The other branch consists of radars with much larger antennas.  The 3+3 national missile defense plan developed by the Clinton Administration envisioned deploying up to nine very large (antenna area = 384 m²) X-band Ground-Based Radars (GBRs) alongside existing early warning radars and at other locations (such as Hawaii).  However, none of these GBRs were ever built as the George W. Bush Administration instead chose to build only the single, somewhat smaller SBX.  A significantly smaller prototype GBR (the GBR-P) radar was built as Kwajalein and used in the early intercept tests of the GMD system.  Under the Bush Administration’s now-cancelled European missile the GBR-P would have been moved to the Czech Republic, where it would have been known as the European Midcourse Radar.  Instead, it remains in caretaker status at Kwajalein.  A drawback of the larger X-band radars is that they use a much larger module spacing than the TPY-2 radars, resulting in very electronic limited scan angles (11-12 degrees, compared to about 60 degrees for the TPY-2s).  For target separations greater than this, these radars would need to mechanically rotate and/or tilt, a relatively very slow process compared to electronic beam positioning.  These larger radars are specialized for precision tracking and discrimination.

Since the radars in the table all (except for the last one) use the same basic Raytheon transmit/receive (T/R) modules, we can directly compare them.  All else being equal, the power delivered in a single beam dwell will be proportional to the product of the radar’s average power, antenna area, and gain (which will be proportional to the antenna area).  The relative P-A-G for each radar is shown in column five of Table 1 with the SBX taken as the baseline.  The maximum tracking range will then be proportional to the fourth root of the P-A-G, and this relative range in shown in column six, again with the SBX as the baseline. 

Of course, the P-A-G can be viewed in terms other than just range.  If, for example, radar A has a P-A-G ten times greater than radar B it could, at the same range, track ten times as many targets, or obtain a S/N ratio ten times larger on a target for improved discrimination or tracking accuracy, or detect a target with a radar cross section ten times smaller than radar B.

As noted above, except for the TPY-2 and stacked TPY-2 (and the dish radar), all these radars have relatively large module spacings, which limits their maximum electronic scan due to the creation of grating lobes (additional main beams).  The maximum scan angle in column seven of Table 1 for the larger X-band radars is based on a maximum radar frequency of 10 GHz (for example a 1 GHz bandwidth radar centered at 9.5 GHz in wide band mode). If the frequency is lower or only narrowband operation is considered, the scan angles will be slightly larger (for example at 9.5 GHz the GBR-P would be ±12 °).

The GBR-P was designed to be upgradable.  Three different upgrades to the GBR-P are considered in Table 1:

GBR-P Upgrade #1: The older T/R modules in the GBR-P (assumed to be first generation, with average power of 1.2 W) are replaced with current T/R modules (assumed to be third-generation, same as in the TPY-2, with an average power of 3.2 W).

GBR-P Upgrade #2:  The outer edges of the current GBR-P antenna face are not populated with modules.  This upgrade fills the entire face (increasing the antenna area from 105 m² to 123 m²) with current T/R modules.

GBR-P Upgrade #3:  Another upgrade option that has been proposed would fill the entire GBR-P antenna face, but with the module spacing cut in half, thus increasing the number of modules by a factor of four compared to upgrade #2.[4]  This change also doubles the extent of the radar’s electronic scan.  While this would give a range nearly equal to that of the SBX, it would be a very extensive (and likely very expensive) upgrade.

The next to last radar in the table (60° SBX Equivalent) is purely hypothetical radar that uses the same module spacing as in the TPY-2 radars (and thus has a full ±60° horizontal electronic scan), but with an antenna size scaled up to give a detection range equal to the SBX.  The large number of modules (over 200,000) required for such a radar would probably rule out such an approach, as this is equal to the total  number of modules in all eight of the TPY-2s the United States  has built so far.

As noted above, a February 2013 MDA report stated that X-band dish (non-phased arrays) radars could provide a more robust and inexpensive capability than the NAS’s proposed Stacked TPY-2 radars for the GMD system. The last radar in the table is the Have Stare X-band dish radar which was at one time deployed at Vandenberg Air Force base in California.  It was subsequently moved to Vardo, Norway, where, renamed the GLOBUS II, it operates as part of the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.[5]  The “emergency response” NMD system proposed by the Air Force in the mid-1990s would have used the Have Stare as its primary precision tracking and discrimination radar.  Since its antenna is mechanically-steered, the number of targets such a radar can handle simultaneously will be quite limited compared to compare to the other radars in the table.

Here’s the table (click on it for a larger image):

Table 1.  Comparison of X-Band Radars

The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy (CSTSP) held an event on “Ballistic Missile Defense: Technical, Strategic and Arms Control Challenges,” on June 6, 2013 in Washington, DC. The speakers were Philip Coyle of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, George Lewis of the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (and the author of this blog), and Bruce MacDonald of the Federation of American Scientists and Johns Hopkins University/SAIS. The speaker’s PowerPoint presentations are now available at the CSTSP website at: http://www.aaas.org/cstsp/programs/nuclear-security.shtml (under “Selected Events”).

An article in Inside Missile Defense earlier this month reported that MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring would not be granting any interviews in the “near term.” (Courtney Albon, “PTSS CAPE Evaluation Submitted to Congress Despite Cancellation,” Inside Missile Defense, June 12, 2013.) The article went on to conclude that “MDA has provided limited information on its programs since last fall, dating back to a scandal involving its previous director.”

[Similarly, in May, Space News reported that MDA Spokeman Richard Lehner told it that MDA was not doing any interviews at that time. (Mike Gruss, "Missile Defense Agency Seeks Universal Kill Vehicle," Space News, May 6, 2013, p. 7)]

This disturbing conclusion seems consistent with the recent removal of MDA’s “Update” and “Overview” briefing slides from the MDA website.

For at least the last few years, the MDA website’s Downloadable Resources page has included a link to a “Program Overview Briefing.” This briefing was a set of PDF briefing slides from a recent presentation by the MDA Director or other high-ranking MDA official. Older program overview briefings could be found by searching the MDA websitefor “ballistic missile defense overview” or ballistic missile defense update.”

About a week before the March 25, 2013 press conference announcing the deployment of fourteen additional GBI interceptors and the cancellation of Phase IV of the European Phased Adaptive Approach, the link to the Program Briefing Overview was removed and replaced with the statement “Briefing slides coming soon.” Moreover, the older briefing slides are no longer accessible on the MDA website (at least I can’t find them).

At the time the briefing slides were removed, the posted slides were “Ballistic Missile Defense Update,” by then MDA Deputy Director Rear Admiral Randall M. Hendrickson, dated August 14, 2012. A more recent set of briefing slides is “Ballistic Missile Defense Update,” by MDA Director Syring from a talk delivered to the American Society of Naval Architects on February 22, 2013. As far as I know, these slides were never posted on the MDA’s website, but are posted on the Society of Naval Engineers’ website.

Below I have included these two briefings as well as a number of earlier MDA program briefings, dating back to 2007 (not all of these were posted as the “Program Overview Briefing” on the MDA website, nor do they include briefings focused on the EPAA, Aegis BMD, etc…):

MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring, February 2013:
BMD-Update-Syring-February2013

MDA Deputy Director Rear Admiral Randall M. Hendrickson, August 14, 2012:
BMD-Update-Hendrickson-August 2012

“U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense,” Moscow, May 2012:
US-BMD-Moscow-May2012

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, March 2012:
BMD-Update-O’Reilly-March 2012

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, August 2011:
BMD-Overview-O’Reilly-August2011

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, September 2009:
BMD-Overview-O’Reilly-September2009

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, May 2009:
BMD-Update-O’Reilly-May 2009

MDA Executive Director Dr. Patricia Sanders, June 2007:
BMD-Overview-Sanders-June2007

MDA Director Lt. General Trey Obering, March 2007:
BMD-Overview-Obering-March 2007

MDA Deputy Director Brigadier General Patrick O’Reilly, January 2007:
BMD-Overview-O’Reilly- January 2007

Here’s what Pentagon Press Secretary George Little had to say on Tuesday about Friday’s failed Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) System test:

Question:  Missile defense.  There was a major missile defense test… 

Little:  Yes. 

Question:  … that didn’t go well on Friday.  A lot of the public is going to say, why are we spending billions on this “turkey,” in quotes?  Can you give the public a sense of if you know what happened and is there a feeling of discomfort within this building that the system using the current warheads — not the new ones — didn’t do so well? 

Little:  The test on Friday was not a success.  And it’s being reviewed as to what went wrong.  And we’re cognizant of the need to get to the bottom of this. 

      But we maintain that we have a robust missile defense system in place to defend the United States and our allies from a range of threats.  And I would repeat what I shared yesterday in my office, Tony, with a number of you and say that you shouldn’t necessarily draw conclusions about our entire missile defense system based on one single test.  We have a range of assets that can support American missile defense, and we are confident that we can defend this country from the missile threat. 

Actually, I think it is considerably more than just “one single test” that has introduced the word “turkey” into this discussion.

I have updated my list of offical claims about GMD effectiveness with Little’s comments

The website of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) is reporting that the cause of the failure of the July 5 FTG-07 Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) intercept test was a failure of the booster rocket of the interceptor.  Specifically, according to the MDAA, “preliminary findings” indicate that the final stage of the booster failed to separate.  As the MDAA article discusses, the consequences of this failure will depend heavily on whether the problem was an isolated quality control problem affecting only a single booster or was due to a more systemic problem that could affect the entire fleet of GBI interceptors (or some subset of them).

If the reported reason for the failure is correct, this will also likely mean that virtually no data on the performance of the kill vehicle was collected.  This would be a serious setback,  since as discussed in my post of July 5,  the primary purpose of the test was to check the performance of the refurbished CE-I kill vehicle after it had received “24 to 25” improvements (possibly some of these improvements were to the booster) and possibly also to test the kill vehicle against “countermeasures.”  Thus although the Missile Defense Agency will undoubtedly emphasize that many elements of the system,  such as the radars, worked well, this would mean that, as far as advancing the GMD program is concerned, the test is  essentially a complete loss.

An article posted on Inside Defense SITREP on Wednesday cites MDA spokesman Richard Lehner as stating that the upcoming FTG-06b test of the Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) national missile defense system was expected to cost between $229 million and $269 million.[1]  However, publicly available information suggests that the cost could be much higher, to the extent that this could be the first test to top the $300 million mark.

FTG-06b is to be the third intercept attempt for the GMD system using a Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) equipped with the new CE-II version of the Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle.  The first two intercept attempts using the CE-II (FTG-06 and FTG-06a) both failed in 2010, as a result of which production and deliveries of new GBIs was suspended and the ten CE-II GBIs already deployed in silos were taken off operational status.   The MDA has stated that production of new GBIs, which is necessary for the deployment of the planned 14 additional GBIs (scheduled to be completed by 2017), will not start until after the CE-II is successfully demonstrated in an intercept test.  That demonstration is the objective of FTG-06b, currently planned for later this year.  A successful non-intercept test (CTV-01) of a CE-II GBI was conducted in January 2013 as part of the process of validating the cause of the FTG-06a failure.

In April 2012 the Government Accountability Office reported (p. 75) the MDA’s estimate of the cost of FTG-06b “as of February 2012” was already $269 million.  Given the time that has elapsed since then (and that the test is still at least a few months away), this cost has certainly increased.

For example, in the same report, the GAO stated that the cost of the non-intercept test CTV-01 was $141million as of February 2012.  By the time the test was actually conducted in January 2013, this figure had increased to about $170 million, an increase of about 21% (see my post of February 5).  If the cost of FTG-06b increased by the same percentage, its cost would be about $327 million.

It is unclear (to me) precisely what the wording “as of February 2012” in the GAO report means.  However, if it means money actually expended by February 2012, then the costs of FTG-06b could go much higher.  This possibility is suggested by the GAO report’s statement (p. 75) that “In addition to the costs of the actual flight tests, the total cost for determining the root cause [of the FTG-06b failure] and developing the design changes has not been fully developed.”   Moreover, MDA did not even begin building the CE-II kill vehicle to be used in FTG-06b until after the January 2013 non-intercept test (and a CE-II kill vehicle reportedly costs about $39 million).

On Friday, four high-ranking Republican members of Congress issued a letter blaming the Obama Administration for the slow pace and poor test record of the Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) national missile defense system.  This widely-publicized letter (see, for example, Barnini Chakraborty, “GOP lawmakers blame Obama Administration over failed missile test,” FoxNews.com, July 14, 2013) complained that only three GMD intercept tests and two GMD flight tests had been conducted over the last four and a half years.  The letter laid the blame for this situation on the Obama Administration, stating that “is already clear that President Obama’s decision to drastically cut funding for the GMD Program since he came to office … has drained funding available to conduct needed tests of the system.”

Funding for the GMD system has decreased under the Obama Administration.  This is hardly surprising given that the GMD was transitioning from a system under rapid deployment to one whose core was largely deployed.   However, this decrease in funding was not the primary cause of the problems with the GMD test program.  Rather, these problems were the result of a series of mistakes and bad decisions made (mostly) before Obama took office.  Specifically:

(1) Well before Obama took office on January 20 2009, the Missile Defense Agency had begun deploying a new version of Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) that has a serious but unsuspected design flaw.  In essence, the George W. Bush Administration had left the Obama Administration with a hidden, ticking (albeit slowly) time bomb that would ultimately wreck the GMD testing program.

(2) This defective new version of the GBI was only needed in the first place, because, in its rush to meet a politically motivated deadline established by the George W. Bush Administration, the MDA had deployed GBIs that relied on non-sustainable parts. Moreover, the first operationally-configured interceptor was deployed more than a year before it was first flight tested and more than two years before its first intercept test.

(3) The new version of the GBI also began deployment long before it had even been flight tested, much less intercept tested.

(4) When the first flight and intercept of this new version of the GBI ultimately took place in early 2010, it failed.   However, the MDA simply continued to deploy them as if there were no problem.

(5) When the design flaw in the new version of the GBI was finally uncovered as a result of a second failed intercept test, its disastrous consequences for the entire GMD program became evident.  It resulted in testing delays of at least five and a half years. It caused planned intercept tests to be cancelled.   It cost over a billion dollars.  To put this cost in perspective, at least four or five intercept tests could have been funded with the money that will ultimately be spent to demonstrate that the CE-II equipped GBI can actually hit a target.  One need not look much further for the cause of GMD test delays and the reason funds have been “drained” from the test program.

(6) Finally, the current slowdown in testing of the GMD system did not begin with the Obama nor did it coincide with large reductions in GMD spending.  The slowdown began in 2007-2008, during the second George W. Bush Administration and at a time when spending on the GMD system was still relatively high.

Some further details and data on each of these six points:

(1) Deployment of GBIs with the new CE-II (Capability Enhancement II) kill vehicle began in October 2008, beginning with the 25^th GBI to be deployed.  The 30^th GBI was deployed in September 2010.  Thereafter, additional new CE-II GBIs replaced already deployed CE-I versions on a one-for-one basis.  The design flaw in the CE-II, which involved a component(s) not used in the older CE-I kill vehicles, was not discovered until sometime after the failure of the FTG-06a intercept test in December 2010, by which time ten of the new CE-II GBIs were already deployed in silos.

(2) In 2002, President George W. Bush directed the Department of Defense to begin deploying an initial set of national missile defense capabilities by 2004.[1]  Deployment of GBIs began on July 22, 2004 when the first GBI was deployed in a silo at Fort Greely, Alaska.  These interceptors were the first ones built to an operational configuration and were equipped with the original Capability Enhancement-1 (CE-I) version of the kill vehicle.  The first flight test of a CE-I GBI was conducted on December 13, 2005  The first intercept test was FTG-02, conducted on September 1, 2006 (although  reported as highly successful at the time, years afterward it was revealed that the interceptor had only struck the target a “glancing blow.”)  Deployment of the CE-I GBIs continued until the end of Fiscal Year 2007, and a total of 24 were deployed. 

Although the 2004 goal for an operational capability was met, in the rush to deploy, the CE-I GBI interceptors were built with non-sustainable parts.   Thus just a year after the first GBI deployment, MDA began developing a new version of the GBI. 

Then MDA Director Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly told Congress in 2011: “However, we started a second version of the missile kill vehicle in 2005 based on obsolescence reasons; parts, manufacturers and so forth not producing parts anymore that – and the electronic systems that we needed.”[2]  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) states that the decision to develop and deploy the CE-II occurred even earlier, in 2004.[3]

While the development and deployment of this new CE-II version of the kill vehicle is often portrayed as a desirable step for the GMD program, one that improved its capabilities, this is not why it happened. As the GAO reports:  “The CE-II EKV was not originally a reliability upgrade or a performance upgrade program.  Its initial priority was replacing obsolete components.  However, updating certain components is expected to result in increased performance.”[4]  As it turned out, updating one of these components would prove disastrous to the GMD program.

(3) MDA began to deploying the new CE-II equipped GBIs before a CE-II kill vehicle had even been flight tested, much less intercept tested.  The first flight and intercept test for a CE-II equipped kill vehicle was FTG-06, held on January 31, 2010, fifteen months after deployment of CE-II GBIs began in October 2008.  

(4) As noted in the point (3) above, the first flight and intercept test of a CE-II GBI was FTG-06, in January 2010.  It was subsequently discovered that the test failed because a part was omitted during the assembly of the kill vehicle. (There was also a serious failure of the SBX radar during this test.)  However, as discussed in (1) above, deliveries and deployment of CE-II GBIs continued.  Deliveries and deployment of CE-II GBIs were not suspended until after the failure of FTG-06a in December 2010, at which point ten were already deployed in silos.

 (5) In 2012, GAO reported that as of February 2012 the cost of the testing the CE-II kill vehicle had reached nearly $1 billion.  These costs are shown in Figure 1 below:[5] 

Figure 1.  Cost of establishing the capability of a CE-II interceptor to hit a target as of February 2012.[6]  Click on the figure for a larger image.

Additional costs since then have certainly pushed the total over $1 billion. (For example, as noted in my post of July 12, the cost of conducting the non-intercept CE-II flight CTV-01 had increased by about $29 million from February 2012 until it was actually conducted in January 2013.  This increase alone puts the total over $1 billion.)

Thus well over $1 billion will ultimately be spent demonstrating the basic operation of the CE-II GBI even if the next test, FTG-06b, is completely successful.  To put this in perspective, the most recent test GMD test, FTG-07, held earlier this month, reportedly cost about $214 million (although the costs of investigating its failure will increase this.)  In 2012, MDA told Congress that the planned future tests FTG-11 and FTG-13 would cost $206 and $191 million respectively.  At roughly $200 million each, MDA could have conducted roughly five intercept tests for the over $1 billion it will expend trying to get a CE-II interceptor to hit a target. 

Moreover, as the graphic from the GAO below illustrates, the problems with the CE-II GBIs imposed at least a five and a half year delay in the GMD testing program.

Figure 2.  Figure from 2013 GAO Report  showing at least five years of delay in the GMD testing program due to problems with the new CE-II GBIs.[7]  Click on the figure for a larger image.

(6) The dramatic slowdown in planned GMD testing occurred in 2007-2008, during the second term of President George W. Bush.  As the top part of the GAO chart below shows, as of September 2006 (following the reportedly successful  FTG-02 test), MDA planned to conduct seven intercept tests (one involving two interceptors) by the end of calendar year 2008.  However, as the lower part of the chart shows, only two tests actually were conducted by the end of 2008.  Moreover, the third test in the lower part of the figure, FTG-06, which is shown as planned for FY2009, did not actually take place until 2Q FY 2010 (and it failed).  Thus the slowdown in GMD testing the letter from the Republican Congressmen complains about was initiated during George W. Bush’s Administration, and at a time during which GMD spending was still relatively high.

Figure 3.  GAO chart illustrating the reductions that occurred in 2007-2008 in the number of planned GMD tests through FY2010.[8]  Click on the figure for a larger image.

A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost estimate has estimated the cost of upgrading and moving the Ground-Based Radar – Prototype (GBR-P) radar from Kwajalein to the U.S. East Coast at $510 million.  Such an upgrade and redeployment apparently is one option under consideration for adding an east coast X-band tracking and discrimination radar to the current U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) national missile defense system. 

The CBO estimated that upgrading the radar and buying communication equipment would cost $220 million.  The CBO did not indicate the nature of the upgrades that would be made.  The capability of the radar could vary greatly depending on the nature of the upgrades –see my post of June 11, 2013 for a discussion of some potential upgrade options).  The CBO additionally estimated that the preparing the site (assumed to be on an existing military base) and constructing facilities would cost another $290 million, bringing the total to $510 million.  The CBO estimated that the radar could be operational as early as 2017.  It further estimated that operating the radar through 2018 would cost an additional $140 million. 

The Ground Based Radar Prototype (GBR-P) is essentially a smaller version of Ground-Based Radar (GBR) proposed as the tracking and discrimination radar for President Clinton’s proposed3+3 NMD system.   No GBRs were ever built, but a single, similar radar was eventually deployed as the Sea-Based X-band (SBX) radar.  The GBR-P is located on Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, where it has been used in the past to observe U.S. ballistic missile tests, although it is not currently in use. Under President George W. Bush’s now-cancelled European Missile Defense plan, the GBR-P would have been moved to the Czech Republic and renamed the European Midcourse Radar.

Construction of the GBR-P on Kwajalein began in October 1996 and it was completed in September 1997.[1]  It first operated at full power in 1998. The GBR-P has an aperture of 123 m², however only 105 m² of the antenna is populated with its 16,896 T/R modules.[2]  These modules appear to be are 6 w peak power, 1.2 w average power, first generation T/R modules (see my post of June 4, 2012).  Its stated single-pulse detection range (against an unspecified target radar cross section) is 2,000 km.[3]  The radar sits on a large turntable that can be rotated ± 178° in azimuth and it’s boresite can be mechanically varied between elevations of  0° and 90°.  It has been reported that it can electronically scan its beam up to 25° (±12.5°) in both azimuth and elevation, although its actual electronic scan may be somewhat less.[4]

The GBR-P is designed to be upgradeable by adding more modules and using its entire 123 m² aperture.  One source states that it can be upgraded to 78,848 modules.[5]  Another source (including authors from the radar’s builder, the Raytheon Company) says “The antenna was designed to be growable to greater than 50,000 elements.[6] 

On July 29, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a potential sale of an FPS-132 early warning radar to Qatar.  This sale of an early warning radar had been announced previously (see my post of November 7, 2012), but the type of radar was not specified at that time.  

 The cost of the radar and associated equipment, training and support was estimated to be $1.1 billion.

The FPS-132 UEWR radar at Fylingdales in Britain.  (Image source: http://www.mda.mil)

 The FPS-132 designation is used for Pave Paws or BMEWS early warning radars that have been upgraded to the Upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR) configuration that now forms the core radar infrastructure of the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) national missile defense system.  The GMD system currently incorporates three FPS-32s, the Pave Paws radar at Beale Air Force Base in California and the BMEWS radasr in Fylingdales,  Britain and Thule, Greenland.   Current plans call for the two remaining Pave Paws radars, at Clear, Alaska and on Cape Cod, to be upgraded to the UEWR configuration by 2017 or later.

The three Pave Paws and two BMEWS radars, all manufactured by Raytheon, are nearly identical except for the somewhat greater size and power the BMEWs radars.  Each phased-array face of a Pave Paws radars has a diameter of 22.1 m compared to 25.6 m for a BMEWS’ radar face.   Each face of a Pave Paws is comprised of 1792 active transmit/receive (T/R) modules, giving an average power per face of about 150 kW.  Each face of a BMEWS includes 2,560 active T/R modules giving an average power of about 255 kW.   Except for the radar at Fylingdales, each of these radars has two faces, each of which covers 120° in azimuth, giving a total azimuthal coverage of 240°.  The Fylingdales radar has three faces, providing 360° coverage.   For descriptions of the Pave Paws and BMEWS radars, see my post of April 12, 2012.

These radars operate between 420-450 MHz, in the UHF radar band.  Because of their limited bandwidth (at most 30 MHZ, probably no more than 10 MHz), the range resolution of these radars is too poor (roughly 25 meters or more) to give them any significant discrimination capability.  However, they can simultaneously track large numbers of targets at large ranges.  MDA’s UEWR fact sheet states that an FPS-132 “detects objects out to 3,000 miles.” In fact, the actual ranges of these radars are likely to be significantly larger.  The original Pave Paws specifications state that it was capable of achieving a S/N = 17.7 dB (= 58.9) against a 10 m² target (on boresite) at a range of 3,000 nautical miles with a single 16 ms pulse (the longest pulse it can produce).  This corresponds to a range of 5,200 km against a 0.1 m² target with a S/N = 13 dB (=20).[1]  The range of the larger BMEWs radars would be about 25% greater.   However, because of the curvature of the Earth, ballistic missile targets are unlikely to be observed at ranges much greater than 4,000-4,500 km.

The announcement of the sale of the radar to Qatar gives no details of the radar’s configuration, such as the number of antenna faces or how it compares in terms of size and power to the existing U.S. Pave Paws or BMEWS radars.  However, it seems likely that the radar is similar to the large phased-array early warning radar that Raytheon recently completed building for Taiwan (which in photographs such as the one here looks very much like a Pave Paws or BMEWS radar) and which is usually described as having two faces and costing about $1.3 billion (after significant cost overruns).

Qatar has also recently ordered two TPY-2 X-band radars (as part of two THAAD missile defense systems).    In the context of an integrated missile defense system, the FPS-132 UEWR would provide early warning and broad-area surveillance against ballistic missile targets for Qatar (and likely other countries), relieving the TPY-2 radars of this mission so as to enable them to focus on their roles as THAAD fire control and discrimination radars.

In U.S. use, all five of the Pave Paws and BMEWS radars also participate in the U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN).   While Qatar probably has little use for space surveillance, data from this radar (if made available) might be quite useful to the U.S. SSN, since it has no large radar in this part of the world.

According to a recent report, the Army may have to “borrow” a TPY-2 X-band radar from a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery for use in future missile defense tests.[1] 

This seems like a good occasion to take another look at where the United States is in building and deploying these radars.  In particular, a more detailed look at the current status of and potential future requirements for these radars indicates that substantially more than the currently planned twelve radars may be needed to meet requirements.

A TPY-2 radar and associated equpment at Kwajalein for the FTI-01 test (image source: http://www.mda.mil).

The TPY-2 radar is an air-transportable radar X-band radar (X-band refers to its operating frequency of about 10 GHz) that can be configured either as a forward-based radar (FBX) for detecting, tracking, and discriminating ballistic missile targets or as a fire control radar for a THAAD  theater missile defense battery.   A TPY-2 radar can be switched between the either configuration in no more than about eight hours.  As a forward deployed radar, a TPY-2 can be used simultaneously both as part of a regional defense system and, in some cases, as an element of the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) national missile defense system.

Prior to 2012, plans called for a total of 14 TPY-2 radars, nine of which were intended for THAAD batteries.  The FY 2013 MDA budget, released in February 2012, reduced the number of planned TPY-2s to eleven (corresponding to a decrease in the planned number of THAAD batteries from nine to six).  In 2013, Congress provided funding for a twelfth TPY-2. 

The U.S. Army has so far accepted delivery of eight TPY-2s.  A TPY-2 takes about 30 months to build under normal circumstances.  In March 2013, it was reported that TPY-2s numbers nine and ten were about halfway completed, and that construction of number eleven was just beginning.  TPY-2 #12 is not yet formally under contract.

Thus, in approximate order of deployment, the current status of the existing and currently planned TPY-2 radars is:

(1) Recently used for testing.  This is the oldest of the TPY-2s.

(2) FBX – Northern Japan

(3) FBX — Israel

(4) FBX — Turkey

(5) THAAD battery – now at Guam

(6) THAAD battery – now at Fort Bliss, TX

(7) FBX – Qatar

(8) THAAD battery #3 (in training) – Fort Bliss

(9) (~mid-2014) THAAD battery #4

(10) (~mid-2014) THAAD battery #5

(11) (~late-2015) THAAD battery #6

(12) (2016, not yet under construction) FBX #6

At present, then, all eight already-completed TPY-2 radars are committed, four as FBXs, three as THAAD radars, and one for use in testing.  At the very least a TPY-2 operating as an FBX will be needed for the FTO-01 integrated system test planned for later in 2013 (another TPY-2 will be used as THAAD fire control radar during this test). 

However, in February 2013 the U.S. announced that a second FBX would be deployed to Japan in the near future.  This commitment was reiterated at the March 15, 2013 Department of Defense Press Conference announcing plans to deploy fourteen additional GBI national missile defense interceptors in silos in Alaska.  Since it appears unlikely that the ninth TPY-2 will be available before mid-2014, once this second radar is deployed to Japan, it thus may become necessary for testing purpose to “borrow” one of the TPY-2s assigned to a THAAD battery.

In the somewhat longer term, it appears that more, and possibly many more, TPY-2s will be needed to meet DoD requirements. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Director Admiral James Syring recently stated that he was working to find funding for  a seventh and possibly eighth THAAD battery (each of which would require a TPY-2).[2]  At least several additional TPY-2s also seem likely to be deployed as forward-based radars.  In September 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported that in addition to the second FBX to be deployed to Japan, the United States was evaluating potential sites, such as the Philippines, for a third FBX deployment to eastern Asia (see my post of September 27, 2012).  Given the limitations of the Aegis Ashore radars planned for Romania (by 2015) and Poland (by 2018), additional TPY-2s will also likely be needed for deployment in Europe.  The September 2012 National Academy of Science (NAS) Report stated that the MDA has proposed deploying a TPY-2 at both Aegis Ashore sites (although possibly this could be accomplished by deploying a THAAD battery to either or both sites).[3] 

In addition, four TPY-2s have been sold to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (two each) as part of THAAD batteries.  Production of these radars may not yet begun, as the twelfth U.S. TPY-2 was funded by Congress earlier this year in part to prevent a temporary shutdown of the TPY-2 production line in FY 2014.  

Finally, the September 2012 NAS Report proposed the deployment of five new X-band radars for precision tracking and discrimination.  Each of these proposed radars would be built using two TPY-2 antennas stacked one on top of the other.  Five such stacked TPY-2 radars would thus consume production resources equivalent to ten TPY-2 radars.  A February 2013 MDA report stated that such a stacked TPY-2 radar would take 30 months to develop and produce “assuming that two existing radars were made available for testing and integration.”[4]  If two already existing radars were not made available (which seems unlikely given the short supply of such radars), at least 63 months would be required to build such a stacked TPY-2 radar, “based on current radar production times.”  The report estimated that a stacked TPY-2 would cost “at least $500 million.” While building such a network of stacked TPY-2 radars would clearly have a huge impact on TPY-2 production, they do not currently appear to currently be MDA’s preferred option for adding new radar capabilities, at least based on the MDA’s February 2013 report’s conclusion (presented without any supporting analysis) that “alternative concepts would provide a more robust capability for less cost.”

——————-

[1]Jen Judson, “Army Could Borrow THAAD AN/TPY-2 Radar for Future Missile Tests,” Inside Defense SITREP, July 22, 2013.

In my post of August 7 about the U.S. sale of a large phased-array FPS-132 early warning radar to Qatar, I omitted the detail that the announcement stated that the radar was a Block 5 version of the FPS-132.  I omitted the “Block 5” designation because I has never seen this before and had no idea what it meant.  However, a 36(b)(1) Arms Sale Notification released today provides some additional information.

Specifically, the Notification says:

“The AN/FPS-132 Block 5 supports Missile Defense, Space Situational Awareness, and Missile Warning areas.  The Block 5 system employs 3 electronically steered phased array radar faces to survey 360 degree azimuth.  The Block 5 system is capable of reporting airborne tracks to a maximum range of up to 2,000 km and to a minimum radar cross section (RCS) of 1 m2.”

So:

(1) It is a three-faced array (like the one at Fylingdales).  So its coverage is not solely focused on Iran , but will include the entire region.

(2) The description of it having a maximum range of 2,000 km and a minimum target RCS capability of 1 square meter:

                (a) Vastly understates the radar’s capabilities.  See my post of August 7 for a discussion of the range capabilities of at least the U.S. FPS-132s.

                OR

                (b) Indicates that the radar is a much smaller version  of the U.S. version of the FPS-132 (unlikely)

                OR

                (c) indicates that software restrictions are being installed in the radar to limit its capabilities.

If I had to guess, I’d guess it’s (a).

The 360° nature of the radar would make it even more attractive for space surveillance, assuming (as I am) that the U.S. will have access to its data.  It’s hard to see what the south looking face(s) of the radar would do other than look for space objects.   

Recent Missile Defense Agency (MDA) presentations at the August 2013 Space and Missile Defense Symposium suggest that boost phase defenses may be making something of a comeback at the MDA.   This is somewhat surprising (to me), since in the last few years MDA has cancelled its two main boost program, the Kinetic Energy Interceptor in 2009 and the Airborne Laser in 2011.

However, a slide, shown below (click on it for a larger image), from MDA Director Vice Admiral J.D. Syring’s August 14 presentation showed an “Airborne Interceptor Layer” that was intended to provide “Highly mobile, survivable BMD; Autonomous and Integrated” as one of five MDA “Priority Technology Investments.”[1]  Another priority investment area was high power lasers, with one objective being the development and deployment a new Airborne Laser.

Another slide, shown below, from the presentation of  Richard Matlock, MDA’s Program Executive for Advanced Technology, shows both a “Boost Phase Kill” from a “High Altitude Long Endurance Platform” (apparently using a laser), and an “Airborne Weapons Layer,” deployed on a fighter aircraft.

In my post of June 26, 2013, I collected together a number of the publicly available “MDA Overview” type briefings.  It seems to me that it is worth doing such collections somewhat more systematically.  So I have created a new Category called “Missile Defense Compilations” (the “Category” listings are on the right side of the home page, after “Recent Posts” and “Archives”).  Today’s post is the first for this new category and is an expanded version of the June 16 collection of MDA Overview Briefings.  In this category I will also link to posts such as my one about Claims About GMD Effectiveness,  testing record compilations, and additional collections of briefings (Aegis BMD will be next).

Here are the MDA Overview type briefings, which will be updated as I come across additional briefings (if you have one I missed, please send it to me):

 MDA Director Vice Admiral J. D. Syring, August 2013: SyringAugust2013SMDC

MDA Program Executive for Advanced Technology Richard Matlock, August 2013: 2013-08-15-Matlock-AdvancedTechnology

MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring, February 2013: BMD-Update-Syring-February2013

MDA Deputy Director Rear Admiral Randall M. Hendrickson, August 14, 2012: BMD-Update-Hendrickson-August 2012

“U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense,” Moscow, May 2012: US-BMD-Moscow-May2012

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, March 2012: BMD-Update-O’Reilly-March 2012

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, August 2011: BMD-Overview-O’Reilly-August2011

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, September 2009: BMD-Overview-O’Reilly-September2009

MDA Director Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, May 2009: BMD-Update-O’Reilly-May 2009

MDA Director Lt. General Trey Obering, May 2008: OberingMay2008NDIA

MDA Executive Director Dr. Patricia Sanders, June 2007: BMD-Overview-Sanders-June2007

MDA Director Lt. General Trey Obering, March 2007: BMD-Overview-Obering-March 2007

MDA Deputy Director Brigadier General Patrick O’Reilly, January 2007: BMD-Overview-O’Reilly- January 2007

Yesterday the MDA announced the successful completion of test FTO-01.  As illustrated in Figure 1 below (made before the test), in this test, conducted on and near Kwajalein Atoll,  two medium-range ballistic missile targets were intercepted, one by an Aegis SM-3 Block 1A interceptor launched from an Aegis  cruiser and the other by a land-based THAAD interceptor.   In both intercepts, cuing from a TPY-2 X-band radar operating in its forward-based mode was used.  The MDA News Release described the test as an “operational” test that demonstrated a “layered defense architecture.”  The “layered defense architecture” here refers to the launch of a second THAAD interceptor that would have attempted to intercept the target hit by the SM-3 if the SM-3 had failed to destroy the target.  Since the SM-3 hit its target, this second THAAD interceptor did not attempt an intercept, although it likely collected some interesting data on the intercept scene.  

Figure 1.  The plan for test FTO-01.  From slide 17 of an August 14, 2013 briefing by MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring, available at: http://mostlymissiledefense.com/2013/09/10/mda-overview-briefings-september-10-2013/.

It is interesting to compare this test to the previous, arguably even more complex, combined test, FTI-01, held in October 2012.  This test is shown in Figure 2 below (from after the test).  In this test, five interceptors (two SM-3 Block IA, one THAAD, and two Patriot) attempted to intercept five ballistic missile or aircraft targets in one-on-one engagements (all apparently occurring within a short period of time.)

Figure 2.  Geometry of test FTI-01.  From briefing by MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring, February 22, 2013.  Available at: http://mostlymissiledefense.com/2013/09/10/mda-overview-briefings-september-10-2013/.

Unlike yesterday’s test, which was called an operational test, FTI-01 was described as a combined developmental-operational test (precisely why it was not a fully operational test is unclear to me).  The results of FTI-01 are shown in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3.  Results of FTI-01 (October 2012).  From briefing by MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring, February 22, 2013.  Available at: http://mostlymissiledefense.com/2013/09/10/mda-overview-briefings-september-10-2013/.

As shown in Figure 3, four of the five intercept attempts in FTI-01 succeeded (in the fifth, although shown on the slide as “not confirmed,” the intercept attempt failed).  The failed intercept in this test was the attempted intercept of a short-range ballistic missile by an Aegis SM-3 Block IA interceptor (as far as I know, the cause of this failure has not yet been publicly revealed – the MDA fact sheet on testing  (updated yesterday) still lists the failure as “pending investigation”).  It would have been interesting if this test had involved a THAAD backing up an SM-3 as was done for the first time in yesterday’s test – in the case  of TFI-01 the THAAD missile would have had a target to attempt to intercept.

As described in my post of September 10, I am now compiling collections of official briefings on missile defense topics in “Missile Defense Compilations” section of the blog.  This post includes briefings on Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) and related topics:

Rear Admiral Jim Syring (Program Executive Office, Integrated Warfare Systems, “Navy IAMD Capabilities,” July 12, 2012 (IAMD = Integrated Air and Missile Defense): 2012-7-SyringNavyAegis

Captain Brian Shipman (Aegis BMD Chief of Staff), “Aegis BMD Overview,” January 23, 2012: 2012-1Aegis_BMD_Overview_MAC_CAPT Shipman 23 AEGIS-Jan 12_ 2012-Shipman

Ms. Laura DeSimone (Deputy Program Executive, Aegis BMD), “Aegis BMD; The Way Ahead,” December 6, 2011: 2011-12AegisDeSimoneDec2011

Rear Admiral Joe Horn (Aegis BMD, MDA), “Aegis BMD Overview,” July 21, 2011:2011-7-Horn-SmallBusiness

Mr. Scott Perry (MDA), “Aegis BMD Update,” July 14, 2011: 2011-7-Aegis-Perry

Captain Mike Anderson (Aegis BMD Technical Director, MDA), “C4I Evolution,” February 11, 2011: 2011-2-Anderson

Rear Admiral Joe Horn (Aegis BMD Program Executive), “Aegis BMD Overview,” July 13, 2010: 2010-7-AegisBMDOverview-RDMLHorn

Vice Admiral J.T. Blake (Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Integration of Requirements and Resources), “Integrated Air and Missile Defense,” July 13, 2010: 2010-07-IAMD-Blake

Rear Admiral Alan B. Hicks (Aegis BMD Program Director), “Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Overview,” August 3, 2009: 2009-8-AegisHicks

Rear Admiral Alan B. Hicks (Aegis BMD Program Director), “Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Overview,” June 18, 2008: 2008-6-AegisNDIA_Hicks

MDA, “Aegis BMD – Status, Integration, and Interoperability,” May 6, 2008: 2008-5-AegisBMD-StatusIntergrationandInteroperability

Rear Admiral Alan B. Hicks (Aegis BMD Program Director), “Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Overview,” November 28, 2007: 2007-11AegisHicks

MDA, “Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense,” September 28, 2006: 2006-6-Aegis06282006

Rear Admiral A. Brad Hicks, “Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System, December 19, 2005:  Link to briefing. 

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) yesterday announced that it had successfully conducted an intercept test of the Aegis SM-3 Block IB interceptor.  In the test, labeled FTM-21, two SM-3 Block IB interceptors  were salvo launched  (that is, sequentially launched against a single target) from the Aegis cruiser Lake Erie, equipped with the Aegis 4.0.2 system, at a short-range ballistic missile target with a separating warhead.  The first of the two interceptors reportedly hit and destroyed the target warhead.

Figure 1.  Illustration of FTM-21 (made prior to the test).  Image source: MDA

This was the first salvo test using two SM-3 interceptors.  In MDA’s previous intercept test, FTO-01 held on September 10, 2013, an SM-3 Block IA and a THAAD interceptor were salvo fired at a medium-range target.  In both tests, the first interceptor reportedly hit the target, leaving nothing for the second missile to intercept.

According to the MDA, in FTM-21 “…the target complex was the most difficult engaged to date.”  The target complex likely consists of at least the target warhead, the rocket booster, and debris associated with the warhead deployment.  Whether any Aegis target complex has included other objects deliberately released (such as decoys) has not been publicly revealed.

This was the fourth successful intercept attempt of the Block IB interceptor, following an initial failed intercept attempt on September 1, 2011.  The next Aegis test, FTM-22, is scheduled for later this year.  If this test, of an SM-3 Block IB interceptor against a medium-range target, is successful, full rate production of the SM-3 Block IB could begin.

Here is an updated table of Aegis BMD intercept tests (see note below the table for how to view a much more readable version of the table).

Target Key: S = short-range, M = medium-range, IR = intermediate range, U = unitary (non-separating), Sp = separating

Click on the rectangular icon at the right (next to the plus and minus magnifiers) to get a much more readable version.

The MDA has announced that yesterday  it conducted a successful intercept test of an SM-3 Block IB interceptor against a seperating medium-range target.  This test, designated FTM-22 , would be the fifth successful intercept test of the SM-3 Block IB after the first intercept test failed.  The MDA has previously stated that successfully completing FTM-22 would allow full rate production of the Block IB interceptor to begin.

The image below (from MDA) was made before test.

Updated list of claims by U.S. government officials about the effectiveness of the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) System.  This iteration adds four  additional claims (mostly older).  They are #4, #9, #26 and #28 below.  Also added is a quote (#29) on defending Guam, since Guam is U.S. territory but is not covered by the GMD system.

(1) September 1, 2000: “… I simply cannot conclude, with the information I have today, that we have enough confidence in the technology and the operational effectiveness of the entire NMD system to move forward to deployment. Therefore, I have decided not to authorize deployment of a national missile defense at this time.”  President Bill Clinton, at Georgetown University, September 1, 2000.

(2) March 18, 2003:  “Effectiveness is in the 90% range.”[1]   Edward Aldridge, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

(3) March 23, 2003: “There are a lot of things that go into [determining] effectiveness.  Everybody can be right.” [2] MDA Director Ronald Kadish, in response to a question about Aldridge’s statement.

(4) July 21, 2005: “We have a better than zero chance of intercepting, I believe, an inbound warhead.”  That confidence will improve with time.”  MDA Director Lt. General Henry Obering.[3]

(5) March 14, 2006: “When the president declares limited defensive operational capability, we are prepared as the shooter, if you will, to execute the mission to defend our country.  And I’m very confident in the efficacy of that system.”[4]  Admiral Timothy Keating, Commander of U.S. Northern Command.

(6) June 2006: “(From) what I have seen and what I know about the system and its capabilities I am very confident.”[5]  MDA Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering.

(7) July 6, 2006: “If it headed to the United States, we’ve got a missile defense system that will defend our country.” President George W. Bush in response to a question on Larry King Live about North Korea’s unsuccessful test of a long-range ballistic missile the day before.

(8) September 1, 2006: “I would say that if we had to use the system in an operational mode, it would be very capable.”[6] MDA Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering.

(9) January 29, 2007: “We are Confident The Ballistic Missile Defense System Would Have Operated As Designed Had The Taepo Dong-2 Threatened The U.S.,” MDA Deputy Director Brigadier General Patrick O’Reilly.[7]

(10) October 2, 2007: “ - does the system work? The answer to that is yes. Is it going to work against more complex threats in the future?  We believe it will.”  MDA Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering.[8]

(11) November 2, 2008: “I have very high confidence we could defend the United States against that threat.”[9] MDA Director Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, about one or two missiles launched from North Korea.

(12) March 27, 2009: “And Senator, I’ll tell you, if we felt the North Koreans were going to shoot a ballistic missile at us today, I am comfortable that we would have an effective system able to meet that threat.”[10]  General Victor Renaurt, Commander U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Transportation Command.

(13) June 9, 2009: “I think that the judgement and advice I got was that the 30 silos we have now, or are under construction, are fully adequate to protect us against a North Korean threat for a number of years.”[11] And “I have confidence that if North Korea launched a long-range missile in the direction of the United States, that we would have a high probability of being able to defend ourselves against it.”  Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

(14) June 16, 2009: Confidence that a North Korean missile could be shot down is: “ninety percent plus.”[12]  MDA Director Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly.

(15) June 18, 2009 (approximately):  “I’d believe we have a reasonable chance” of intercepting a North Korean missile.  Director of Operational Test and Evaluation Charles McQueary, in an interview on his last day in the job.[13]

(16) July 28, 2009:“Well, we have a very proven missile system in the area of missiles coming out of North Korea.”[14]  MDA Director Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly.

(17) April 21, 2010:“It is the belief of the — of the leaders of this department that we have the capability to defend the United States against the — against an ICBM threat from a rogue nation such as Iran or North Korea.  We are confident in the system we have at this point.”[15]  Geoff Morrell, Pentagon Press Secretary.

(18) December 1, 2010: “…the probability will be well in the high 90s today of the GMD system being able to intercept that today.” MDA Director Patrick O’Reilly in response to a question from Representative Trent Franks about countering “one ICBM coming from Tehran to New York.”[16]

(19) April 13, 2011:“The posture we have today is one that has us well-protected against the initial ICBMs that might be deployed by states like North Korea and Iran with — that are few in number, relatively slow and lack sophisticated countermeasures.”[17]  Bradley Roberts, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy.

(20) December 12, 2012: “I’m very confident that American defense capabilities are able, no problem, to block a rocket like this one.”  U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, in response to a question from CNN on the capability of U.S missile defenses, December 12, 2012.[18]

(21) March 7, 2013: “I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack.  And our recent success in returning to testing of the upgraded version of the so-called GBI, or the CE2 missile, will keep us on a good trajectory to improve our defense capability against limited ballistic missile threats such as those from North Korea.  But let’s be clear, we are fully capable of dealing with that threat.”  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, in response to a question at White House Daily Press Briefing, March 7, 2013.[19]

(22) March 15, 2013: “We have confidence in our system.  And we certainly will not go forward with the additional 14 interceptors until we are sure that we have the complete confidence that we will need.  But the American people should be assured that our interceptors are effective.”  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in response to a question at a Pentagon press conference, March 15, 2013.

(23) April 9, 2013: I believe we have a credible ability to defend the homeland, to defend Hawaii, to defend Guam, to defend our forward-deployed forces and defend our allies.  Admiral Samuel Locklear, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, Senate Armed Services Committee, April 9, 2013 in response to a question about intercepting North Korean missiles.[20]

(24) May 9, 2013: “We do have confidence in the ability of the ballistic missile defense system to defend the United States against a limited attack from both North Korea and Iran today and in the near future.” Lt. General Richard Formica, Commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command and Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, in response to a question from Senator Mark Udall about the capability of “our current GMD system to defend all of the United States, including the East Coast, against current and near-term ballistic missile threats from both North Korea and Iran?”[21]

(25) May 9, 2013: “The East Coast is well-protected as the result of — well, it was protected before the additional — and this additional ’14 provides additional protection both for anything from North Korea as well as anything from Iran should that threat develop.”  Madelyn Creedon, Assistant Defense Secretary for Global Strategic Affairs, in response to a question from Senator Mark Udall (and referring to the recently announced plan to deploy 14 additional interceptors in Alaska).[22] 

(26) July 2013: “I stand by my response in the testimony I provided on May 9.”  Lt. General Richard Formica, Commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, when asked about the effectiveness of the GMD System shortly after failure of FTG-07 on July 5, 2013.[23]

(27) July 10, 2013:  “But we maintain that we have a robust missile defense system in place to defend the United States and our allies from a range of threats.”   “We have a range of assets that can support American missile defense, and we are confident that we can defend this country from the missile threat.” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little , July 9 2013 (four days after the failed FTG-07 intercept test of the GMD system).[24]

(28) Sometime before August 21, 2013:  “Of course you’re protected. Yes, you’re protected.  We’re proud to protect you.”  MDA Director Vice Admiral James Syring, in response to the question “Am I protected where I live?” asked by a person sitting next to him on an airplane.[25]

Bonus Quote on Defending Guam from a North Korean Missile Attack:

(29) April 5, 2013: THAAD together with other systems such as Aegis and Patriot could take out a missile launched by North Korea at Guam “fairly quickly.” “We are very confident of that.”  Major General Dana J. H. Pittard (Commander of Fort Bliss, home base for THAAD).[26]