"Cancelling FTG-04: Another Missile Defense Test Disappears"

by Victoria Samson, CDI Research Analyst

The next test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system has been unceremoniously cancelled after having first been delayed several times.  Its removal from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)’s test schedule is alarming for two reasons: it indicates a long-standing problem with the GMD test interceptor that they have been unable to rectify, and it has become one of many missile defense tests that have been called off in order to meet a predetermined schedule. Neither of these bode well for the U.S. ballistic missile defense system, and is another example of how MDA’s constant shifting of the GMD test schedule renders it extremely difficult to determine if progress is being made and milestones being met. 

The GMD system presently has 24 interceptors deployed in Ft. Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), Calif.  During its testing over the past nine years, it has made seven intercepts out of 13 attempts.  So the test record already was feeble without having this latest delay weaken it further.

The cancelled test, known as FTG-04, was scheduled to have an interceptor from VAFB attempt to destroy a target that had been launched from Kodiak, Alaska.  According to the fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget justification documents MDA submitted to Congress in February, this test was supposed to “demonstrate the functionality of the GBI [Ground-based Interceptor] engage on UEWR [Upgraded Early Warning Radar in Beale, Calif.] or AN/TPY-2 ESG [a forward-based X-band radar] for a GBI launched from Vandenberg AFB performing all functions through acquisition, discrimination, transition to terminal, and intercepting the lethal object from a live target complex launched from Kodiak using a more complex target scene than previous tests.” The AN/TPY-2 temporarily situated in Juneau, Alaska, would help track the target. The Sea-based X-band radar (SBX), which had been used in previous tests to aid in the collection of tracking data, was not planned to be a part of this test.  FTG-04 would have been the first test in six years to use countermeasures in order to stress the interceptor’s discrimination system, although not necessarily to the same degree that a real enemy would.  

The GMD system’s flight intercept attempts have been running at a cost of $115 million to $160 million for each test.  FTG-04 had already been deferred several times, and further delays were required to fix problems with the test interceptor.  The postponement of previous tests also had a ripple effect on FTG-04’s schedule.  On May 25, 2007, FTG-3’s target did not fly out the way it was supposed to have, so the interceptor never was launched and the test had to be redone. (Note that FTG-3 itself took place six months behind schedule.)  FTG-3A, created to be a makeup for FTG-3, was held on Sept. 28, 2007, and did result in an intercept.  But this intrusion into the GMD’s test schedule in turn pushed all of the following tests back. FTG-04 was initially planned for April of this year, and then pushed back to July. 

But MDA recently acknowledged that FTG-04 has been outright taken off the schedule. Instead, we have FTX-03, which officially will be a radar characterization test, scheduled for July.  While originally reported by the media that a live interceptor would be used during this test, the author has since been informed by the Missile Defense Agency that no live interceptor will be in FTX-03.  The AN/TPY-2 radar in Juneau will still be used. But the SBX is currently undergoing routine maintenance in Hawaii so it may not be a part of the test.  If it is not, this will represent yet another delay in demonstrating that the SBX can command the interceptor to correct its course toward the target.  SBX is needed to track and discriminate a warhead throughout its ballistic trajectory: neither the radar in Juneau nor the upgraded one in Beale AFB can discriminate sufficiently for an intercept involving realistic decoys and countermeasures.

According to the FY 08 budget documents, FTX-03 was to be held in 4QFY07 and its primary goal was to “track a live, ballistic target with AN/TPY-2 (FB) radar & pass real-time data to C2BMC.”  But in the MDA’s FY 09 budget justification documents, released in February 2008, had this to say about FTX-03: “PB [Presidential Budget] 08: 4Q FY 2007; PB09: Not in PB09 Submission. Notes: Test event was cancelled due to the feasibility of the test event.”

FTX-03 may have been left out of the FY 09 budget documents because of problems with the test preceding it, FTX-02.  Held in March 2007, this test of the SBX turned up some “anomalous behavior" of the radar and "uncovered some unanticipated, undesirable performance,” according to the FY 2007 Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E)’s annual report, released in January 2008.  Because of this, DOT&E wrote, “[D]ata from FTX-02 demonstrated that SBX needed software modifications to improve discrimination performance during tracking scenarios,” and MDA undertook those updates to the radar’s software.

A factor that probably played a role in MDA’s decision to take FTG-04 off the schedule was that its constant delays were having a snowballing effect on the rest of the GMD’s test timetable.  This in turn was slowing MDA’s push to get to BVT-1, the first developmental test of the two-stage variant of the GMD system that the Bush administration wishes to field in Poland as part of its European missile defense system.  Neither Congress nor Poland has wholeheartedly endorsed this move, but MDA still is laying the groundwork for BVT-1 (currently planned to be held in the summer or fall of 2010). 

FTG-04’s flight test goals will probably be folded into the next official intercept attempt, FTG-05, scheduled for this December.  If FTG-05 is held when currently planned, there will not have been an official flight test intercept attempt for the GMD program during all of FY 2008.  In the FY 08 budget justification documents, MDA stated that it planned to hold FTG-05 and FTG-06 during that fiscal year.  But in the FY 09 budget justification documents, MDA had modified that to just include FTG-05; FTG-06, on the other hand, had been pushed back three fiscal quarters.  In fact, comparing the test schedule given in the FY 08 budget justification documents to the one listed in the FY 09 documents, all the planned tests for the GMD program have been moved to the right by several quarters. 

The official reason why FTG-04 was cancelled is that an anomaly with the test interceptor’s telemetry unit would take several months to fix, throwing off the test schedule even more.  This same anomaly has been showing up in GMD tests since 2001, and MDA has not been able to make it go away.  According to Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesperson for MDA, a check in February had shown that that telemetry unit was still not working properly, hence, “It makes no sense to conduct the test if there is a known possibility that performance data might be lost if the telemetry unit malfunctions.” If this were actually the case, though, the testing program should have been halted after the first time the unit malfunctioned until the problem had been properly dealt with.  But MDA has not been able to solve this problem now for nearly a decade.

MDA does have a history of cancelling GMD tests. In January 2003, for example, MDA cancelled IFT-11 and -12 (it used a different nomenclature for its testing program at that point), with the justification that it had to focus on developing the GMD interceptor’s booster rocket.  At that point, MDA had cancelled nine out of 20 GMD tests then-scheduled; if these had been conducted, it would have delayed the 2004 initial missile defense deployment ordered in a 2002 presidential directive.

This trend of cancelling troublesome tests is a dangerous one, as it glosses over many of the programs the GMD system has yet to work through. It also strings along the U.S. Congress, withholding new test results by which the Congress could assess progress, and postponing the possibility of bad news from failed tests.

Besides the snails-pace testing schedule, this move by MDA also places the next official test intercept attempt after Congress has finished its debate over the FY 09 budget and the presidential election is over.  Both of these actions have much to do with the debate over extending the GMD system to Europe.  The United States wishes to place 10 interceptors in Poland and an X-band radar in the Czech Republic, as well as a Forward-based X-band Radar somewhere in southeastern Europe.  Poland and the Czech Republic are still negotiating with the U.S. government, and the proposed missile defense system in Europe is very unpopular with both the Czech and Polish citizenry.  Also, Russia is firmly opposed to the system and, if it is to be built, wants access for inspections. 

Partially due to this hesitation by the host countries and concerns of Russia, Congress has put limitations on funding that has been requested for the European missile defense site; some members of Congress are also questioning the effectiveness of the technology involved, given that it rests heavily on an interceptor that is a variant of the GMD system.  If there were to be a flight test failure of the GMD system while Congress is undergoing its budget deliberations, this could have negative repercussions on the funding for the proposed European site.  It could also shine a political spotlight on the struggling program at a time when there are many uncertainties about how supportive the next administration would be of missile defense.

MDA has made a significant effort to learn from its tests and incorporate that knowledge into its programs. Its application of spiral development, where it deploys technologies while simultaneously still working on them, depends upon a developmental cycle that is organic and adaptable.  By cancelling FTG-04, and sweeping sticky tests under the rug as it has done, MDA robs its missile defense programs from the knowledge and hence progress that testing is supposed to generate.