Guest Blogger, Victoria Samson:Space-based missile defense: Yes? No? Maybe so?

September 26, 2008 at 8:07 am | Posted in Guest blogger | 1 Comment

 

Victoria Samson

By Victoria Samson, senior analyst for the Center for Defense Information

Victoria Samson joined the Center for Defense Information in November 2001. Her areas of interest include missile defense, nuclear reductions, and emerging weapons technologies. Samson, the author of numerous op-eds, analytical pieces, journal articles, and electronic updates on missile defense and space security matters, provides an objective assessment of U.S. policy. Prior to coming to CDI, Samson was the senior policy associate at the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a consortium of arms control groups in the Washington, D.C., area. She previously worked as a subcontractor on war-gaming scenarios for the Missile Defense Agency’s Directorate of Intelligence. Samson has an M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She also holds a B.A. in political science with a specialization in international relations from UCLA.

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA)’s controversial space-based missile defense program appears to have made it through Congressional debates over Fiscal Year (FY) 2009’s defense budget.  While the Senate-House defense authorization agreement (which officially needs to be approved by the House and Senate individually) explicitly denied the $10 million requested for a Space Test Bed in FY 09, the appropriations’ continuing resolution bill seems to have found a work-around for that.  True, the $10 million was zeroed out, but $5 million was put back, ostensibly for what the appropriators called “Space-Based Interceptor Study.” This $5 million is provided “to support the study outlined in section 236 of S. 3001, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009.” 

Adding to the uncertainty is that Sec. 236 is titled “Activation and deployment of AN/TPY-2 Forward-based X-band Radar,” which has nothing to do with space-based interceptors.  Instead, it is likely that the appropriators meant to refer to Sec. 232 of the authorization bill, which asked for an “Independent Study of Boost-Phase Missile Defense.”  The authorizers listed the systems that should be examined as part of this study: namely, the Airborne Laser and Kinetic Energy Interceptor, MDA’s two competing programs working toward becoming the boost phase interceptor segment of the U.S. ballistic missile defense system. Space-based interceptors aren’t mentioned at all in this section, unless you count the third option given to be included in this study: “C) Other existing boost-phase technology demonstration programs.” 

The Space Test Bed’s raison d’etre was to be a proof-of-concept for space-based interceptors used as part of MDA’s boost phase capabilities.  The trouble is, this is not an existing program, unless MDA’s got something tucked away we don’t know about.  It definitely has big plans for the program, though. In the budget justification documents released with the request back in February, MDA indicated that it hoped to spend $268.3 million on the Space Test Bed through FY 2013.  Funding for the Space Test Bed would be the first time the United States has explicitly spent money on a dedicated space-weapons program since 1993.

Links:

The Authorization.

The Line item funding.

The Appropriation: House Explanatory Statement on the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations (CR) Act of 2009 (September 23, 2008).