Missile Defense Agency - Definition and Overview

The Missile Defense Agency is the section of Department of Defense responsible for developing a layered defense against ballistic missiles. See National_Missile_Defense for the history of DoD missile defense programs.

Mission Statement

From the agency's web-page:

"The Missile Defense Agency's mission is to develop, test and prepare for deployment of a missile defense system. Using complementary interceptors, land-, sea-, air- and space-based sensors, and battle management command and control systems, the planned missile defense system will be able to engage all classes and ranges of ballistic missile threats. Our programmatic strategy is to develop, rigorously test, and continuously evaluate production, deployment and operational alternatives for the ballistic missile defense system. Missile defense systems being developed and tested by MDA are primarily based on hit-to-kill technology. It has been described as hitting a bullet with a bullet - a capability that has been successfully demonstrated in test after test."

MDA divides their systems into 3 categories, boost phase, mid-course phase, and terminal phase, each corresponding to a different phase of the threat ballistic missile flight regime. Each phase offers different advantages and disadvantages to a missile defense system, thus the layered defense approach concept should improve over-all defense effectiveness.

Boost phase defense

• Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) - in December 2003, MDA awarded a contract to Northrop-Grumman for developing and testing - perhaps later also to be applied for mid-course defense. It has to be launched from a location not too far from the launch site of the target missile (and is therefore less suitable against large countries), it has to be fired very soon after launch of the target, and it has to be very fast itself (6 km/s).
• Airborne Laser

One can distinguish disabling the warheads and just disabling the boosting capability. The latter has the risk of "shortfall": damage in countries between the launch site and the target location.

See also APS report.

Midcourse phase defense

• Ground Based Midcourse Defense System (GMD) - a Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) includes both a booster missile and a kill vehicle
• Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD) - a SM-3 missile with Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile (LEAP) Kinetic Warhead (KW), to be launched from surface ships, is developed

An important aspect for this phase is distinguishing between actual warhead(s) and decoys.

Terminal phase defense

• Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
• PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), See MIM-104 Patriot
• Arrow missile, a joint effort between the U.S. and Israel
• Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), a co-developmental program with Germany and Italy.

External Links

MDA Home Page (http://www.acq.osd.mil/mda/mdalink/html/mdalink.html)