US Navy scheduled to accept Aegis Ashore Poland by mid-December

Aegis Ashore is a four-storey deckhouse and launch tower, which will provide a static home in Romania and Poland for the SPY-1D(V) radar, SM-3 missiles, and other systems taken from the US Navy's BMD ships. (Missile Defense Agency)

The US Navy (USN) is scheduled to officially accept the Aegis Ashore site in Poland by mid-December, according to Rear Admiral Douglas Williams, the acting director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

“The navy will formally accept Aegis Ashore Poland into their inventory on December 15,” Rear Adm Williams told the House Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee in a written testimony on 7 December.

Located in Redzikowo, the Aegis Ashore site “was added to the Operational Capability Baseline in September 2023 with upgrades over the original design and state-of-the-art integrated electronic security system,” Rear Adm Williams noted.

The Aegis Ashore site in Poland was delivered to the USN on 1 October for operational use and maintenance, the MDA acting director said.

The USN's acceptance marks a milestone, he said. “This will complete EPAA [European Phased Adaptive Approach] Phase 3, originally established in 2009,” he said. “The navy will install additional upgrades at Aegis Ashore Poland through May 2024, after which it will transfer to NATO in July 2024 for command-and-control of Aegis Ashore Poland in the defence of NATO European states against ballistic missile threats originating outside the Euro-Atlantic area.”

USN sailors have been “aboard” the system and radar arrays have been up since at least May 2022, MDA officials said in March 2023. At that time they cited the June 2022 ‘light-off' milestone that marked the completion of most of the construction for the combat equipment.