Technology: Is The Problem The Booster Or The Kill Vehicle?
The last several months have seen an interesting series of developments from the world of missile defense. To understand this, think about how the GMD interceptor is supposed to work. Notified of an enemy missile launch, the booster rocket, tipped with the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), blasts into space. Once through the atmosphere, the EKV separates from the booster rocket, which then falls away. Flying alone, the EKV maneuvers into the path of the oncoming enemy missile, and destroys it by the simple impact of the two objects.
Unfortunately, there have been two test failures that have resulted from the failure of the EKV to separate from the booster, the latest occuring on December 11, 2002. If they don’t separate, the EKV can’t maneuver into the path of the enemy missile, and can’t destroy it by impact. MDA has sometimes attributed this failure of the latest test to problems with the booster and sometimes to problems with the EKV. It’s important because MDA is replacing the booster later this year, but keeping the EKV. If the EKV is the source of the problem, switching to a new booster won’t help.
Here’s a timeline:
- On December 11, following the failure of the most recent intercept test, a press release from MDA detailed the history of the surrogate booster used in the system and implied that the failure was due to a problem with the surrogate booster: “The surrogate booster is used for the developmental flight test program only, and is not intended for further use in the GMD test program or for a future operational GMD system…Initial post-test analysis indicate that all other GMD program elements successfully completed their test objectives…”
- Less than a week later, President Bush announced that “In light of the new security environment and progress made to date in missile defense development efforts, [I] have directed the Department of Defense to begin fielding initial missile defense capabilities [building on] the planned Pacific Missile Defense Testbed…” It appears incongruous to announce sufficient progress to deploy a system, when the most recent test only a few days earlier has failed.
- On January 7, MDA announced that it was cancelling the next two intercept tests and would not conduct another intercept test until fall 2003. Again, it appears counter-intuitive to cancel tests less than two years before initial deployment, when so much remains uncertain. General Kadish has replied by calling 2003 the “year of the booster” and has stated that since a new booster is so essential, it was not useful to continue to test using the old booster.
- However, speaking at a conference last month, General Kadish attributed the latest failure to problems with the EKV, not the surrogate booster at all. According to an article in Aerospace Daily, General Kadish blamed the failure on a “mechanical break” in two computer chip “pins” on a circuit board in the EKV.
This conflicting history raises several important questions:
- If the problem is with the EKV and not the surrogate booster, why isn’t MDA continuing to test with the surrogate booster through 2003? The tests up to this point have been very simplified, and in a number of cases, even repeats of those simplified tests, and there is a long way to go before the testing process is anywhere near complete. Surely, more tests would help, even with a surrogate booster.
- If the problem is with the EKV and not the surrogate booster, is there any investigation into why the EKV failed, and the likelihood that it will happen again? Gen. Kadish has said “[T]here is no underlying problem with the EKV technology.” But is there sufficient evidence to show that he is correct?