Cuts Could Affect Missile Defense Testing
By John M. Doyle 
If Pentagon budget cuts come as expected, the reduced funding could spell less testing for the U.S. ballistic missile defense system, despite outside criticism and congressional calls for even more, especially of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element.
Most observers believe the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will face cutbacks of as much as $2 billion, a fifth of the annual missile defense portfolio, when President Barack Obama announces his fiscal 2010 defense budget. Obama told a White House press conference last week his staff already has found $40 billion in long-term savings across the Defense Department and expects to find more.
MDA has spent $56 billion developing and fielding a ballistic missile defense system since 2002 and is expected to spend an additional $50 billion through 2013. But Peter Verga, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said March 23 he expects the entire defense establishment “to be operating in a more fiscally constrained environment for some time.”.
In testimony last month before the House strategic forces subcommittee, Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, MDA’s director, said tests of the GMD system can cost up to $120 million each. Still, subcommittee Chair Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and other congressional leaders and auditors have said GMD needs more effective testing, especially before it is deployed in Europe.
Consequently, missile defense contractors tell Aviation Week they think the shrinking budget will lead to more modeling and simulation (M&S) instead of live testing. “You have no other choice,” than to “figure out cheaper and better ways to test,” said Mike Rinn, program director of Boeing’s Airborne Laser.
That should be good news for institutions that conduct M&S exercises for the federal government. Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), a staunch M&S advocate, said it will “move to the forefront because it is the only way some kinds of testing can be done.” But Forbes, co-chair of the House Modeling Caucus with Texas Democrat Solomon Ortiz, decried the spending on financial bailouts that is adding to the economic pressure on the defense budget. “Modeling and simulation helps us do the testing but [it] is not going to knock down a missile,” he stressed.
“I think there will always be money for testing,” said Larry Dodgen, executive lead for Northrop Grumman’s Missile Defense Integration Group, but he believes MDA’s O’Reilly will combine M&S with live tests and the testing will focus on not just a single element, but all aspects of the ballistic missile defense system.
Photo: MDA
