On December 11, the U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency conducted an SM-3 Block IIA intercept test from an Aegis Ashore facility at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, Hawaii. The SM-3 IIA successfully intercepted an IRBM target launched by a USAF C-17 thousands of kilometers southwest of the Aegis Ashore site. An MDA...
On October 22, the U.S. Army confirmed its collaboration with the Navy, the Air Force, and the Missile Defense Agency to develop hypersonic weapons, amid developments in hypersonic missile testing in Russia and China. According to the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), the three armed services and the MDA are collaborating on a...
On August 1, Congress passed the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill authorizes a total of $10 billion for the Missile Defense Agency, $51 million more than the Trump Administration request. The authorization includes relative reductions to programs that were forward financed in the final FY 2018 omnibus appropriations bill and supplements...
Rethinking the push for program transfer When the U.S. Missile Defense Agency was created in 2002, the expectation was that it would initially develop missile defense systems but then transfer responsibility for their procurement to the military services that would operate them. The process has not worked out quite as expected. Missile defense capabilities have...
On October 15, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced that ships from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States participated in a live-fire integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) scenario. During the exercise, the Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) tracked and defeated a medium-range ballistic...
On July 24, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) indicated that sailor error was responsible for a failed SM-3 Block IIA missile intercept test. According to Defense News, a tactical datalink controller, responsible for maintaining communications between the missile and the Navy’s Aegis ship combat system, incorrectly identified the incoming ballistic missile target as friendly, consequentially...
The United States‘ Missile Defense Agency is accelerating the development of an interceptor designed to counter several incoming warheads or decoys simultaneously. The most recent Department of Defense budget request seeks $259 million for the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) program for technology risk reduction and product development and speeds up its projected completion by five...
The Trump Administration’s proposed FY2018 budget for the Missile Defense Agency was released yesterday with a topline request of $7.9 billion. The amount represents $380 million more than the budget submitted by the Obama administration in FY 2017, a five percent increase, and $471 million more than the projected 2018 budget from last year’s Future...
This chart shows the Missile Defense Agency budget movements made by each committee in both the House and Senate. The green highlighted columns show the final totals of the authorization and appropriations acts. Ultimately, the appropriations bill sets the final total for Missile Defense Agency spending in fiscal year 2017. The final column shows the...
The Israeli Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) successfully completed the fifth series of tests of the David’s Sling Weapons System at Palmachim Air Base, Israel. The David’s Sling system is part of Israel’s multi-layer missile defense shield and is a collaboration between the United States and Israel designed to defend...
