The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is requesting about USD1.733 billion in fiscal year 2022 (FY 2022) to improve its strategic missile defence system, including USD926.1 million to develop a new interceptor.
MDA had requested USD1.9 billion in FY 2021 to improve its Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) homeland missile defence system, which included USD664.1 million to kick off a Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) programme after a similar effort was cancelled in 2019.
Improving the GMD system has been a top priority for MDA, but the effort suffered a major setback after a new kill vehicle programme was terminated. (MDA)
In FY 2022, GMD would get USD745.1 million to upgrade or replace ground infrastructure and improve reliability of fire control and kill vehicle software, add software for a selectable two- or three-stage rocket booster, and buy five new boosters.
MDA’s request included USD61.4 million for the GMD test programme, which in 2021 plans to test the new two-stage boost mode that is designed to increase the ‘window’ for potential missile intercepts.
Meanwhile, for NGI the Pentagon in March announced competing development contract awards to teams led by Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. The two cost-plus-award-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee, and cost-plus-incentive-fee contracts, worth “an estimated maximum value of USD1.6 billion through fiscal year 2022”, are intended to carry the two competing designs “into the technology development and risk reduction phase of the acquisition programme”, the Pentagon said at the time.
NGIs are meant to arm GMD, which fields a mix of older and more updated interceptors that have been inconsistently fielded and upgraded at various times since the system began operation in October 2004.
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