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November 21, 2008
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Home :: Missile Defense Systems
Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI)
| Country: | USA |
|---|---|
| Basing: | Land |
| In Service: | 2004 |
Details
The Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) is a multi-stage silo-launched booster rocket and kill vehicle that will track and destroy high-speed ballistic missiles in their midcourse phase, i.e. while the missiles are still outside the atmosphere and at their highest trajectory. Once operational, the GBI will be a critical part of the Missile Defense Agency’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which is scheduled for deployment in September 2004.
Although MDA developed many of GMD’s technologies during the 1980s and 1990s, the project officially began in 1998 with a $1.6 billion dollar initial contract to Boeing. Subcontractors include Orbital Sciences Corporation, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon. Boeing is in charge of GBI’s development, and the project is currently undergoing extensive ground and flight tests. As currently envisioned, each GBI missile will consist of two main components: a three-stage booster rocket and the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV).
MDA currently has two separate booster rockets in the works: Orbital Sciences Corporation is building the Orbital Boost Vehicle (OBV), while Lockheed Martin is designing the Boost Vehicle Plus (BV-Plus). The OBV can fly at 3.7 miles per second; the BV-Plus maxes out at 3.4 miles per second. MDA believes that deploying a variety of booster rockets will strengthen the overall GMD system. According to Army Major General John W. Holly, Director of GMD, “If you can match the right weapon with the target that you are going after, . . . you are much more efficient in your engagement.”
On top of either the OBV or the BV-Plus will sit Raytheon’s Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle. The EKV is designed to track and destroy ballistic missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere, hence its “exoatmospheric” nature. Each kill vehicle costs between $20 and $25 million and will include a range of sophisticated devices: infrared sensors, an internal navigational system, antennas, thruster engines, a cryogenic cooling system, and a small computer, all designed to maximize the probability of a successful “kill.” Yet even with all its components, the entire EKV will fit comfortably on a kitchen table. It is only 55 inches long, 24 inches in diameter, and weighs 140 pounds.
Once deployed, the GBI interceptors will be located in underground silos and will be connected to a web of satellites and radars that will continuously scan the entire globe for threats. In the event that an enemy missile is detected, the GMD command center will relay its launch command, and the designated GBI missile will blast out of its silo and climb toward the target’s predicted location, receiving in-flight tracking updates from the satellites and radars along the way.
As it streaks through its three boost stages, the GBI will gain speed. Three minutes into its flight (approximately 1,400 miles from its target), the EKV will separate from the third-stage booster rocket. Dozens of cables will be blown off, and four springs will propel the small payload forward. The EKV will immediately bank sharply to either the right or the left to avoid being hit from behind by the booster rocket. From this point forward, the kill vehicle will proceed to the target on its own momentum.
As the EKV closes in, the combined velocity of the kill vehicle and the incoming missile will approach 15,000 miles per hour (four miles per second, or five times the speed of a bullet), leaving little room for last minute maneuvers. Approximately 100 seconds before impact, the EKV’s infrared sensors will switch on and begin tracking the incoming ballistic missile. To achieve complete threat neutralization, the EKV will collide with the warhead’s “sweet spot,” an area just a few centimeters wide where the missile’s payload is located. The impact from a precise hit will pulverize the warhead and destroy any nuclear, chemical, or biological agents it might be carrying.
Since 1999, MDA has conducted seven hit-to-kill tests. Five have been successful. The most recent was on October 14, 2002, when a GBI from the Reagan Test Site in the central Pacific Ocean tracked and destroyed a target vehicle launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at an altitude of 140 miles and a closing speed in excess of 15,000 miles per hour. MDA plans to perform approximately 17 more hit-to-kill intercepts over the next several years.
Due to these successes, the GBI program has received enthusiastic support from the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. MDA is currently installing six GBI missiles at Fort Greely in Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base Over 20 interceptors are scheduled for deployment over the next two years.
Sources
“ATK Awarded $97 Million Contract to Supply Orion Rocket Motors to Orbital Sciences Corporation Rocket Motors Will Launch Orbital’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Orbital Boost Vehicle (OBV).” PR Newswire, 18 February 2004.
Federation of American Scientists.
Maas, Peter. “Get Ready, Here Comes The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle; Star Wars Missile Defense: The Sequel.” New York Times Magazine, 26 September 1999.
Missile Defense Agency.
Morris, Jefferson. “Lockheed Martin Developing Advanced Booster For Missile Defense.” Aerospace Daily, 8 August 2002.
Orbital Sciences Corporation.
Pae, Peter. “Kill Vehicle A Hit With Proponents Of Missile Defense.” Los Angeles Times, 28 March 2002.
Sirak, Michael C. “Year of the Missile.” Air Force Magazine, January 2004.
Raytheon Company.
Tuttle, Rich. “Aerojet Aims To Take Over THAAD, BV-Plus Motor Work.” Aerospace Daily, 12 April 2004.
U.S. Department of Defense.
Warwick, Graham. “Missile Tests Wait For New Boosters.” Flight International, 21 January 2003.
MDA Launches Target Missile to Test Beale Missile Radar
The Missile Defense Agency today successfully tested an upgraded early warning radar located at Beale Air Force Base, California, which forms a part of the missile defense system being developed. A long-range Strategic Targets System (STARS) rocket was launched from the Kodiak Launch Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and was successfully tracked by the Beale AFB radar during the exercise. Other news reports noted that the 35-foot long target missile was indeed launched, and its payload traveled 2,500 miles toward the California-Mexico border, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
An interceptor missile, such as the Ground Based Interceptors some of which are based at Vandenberg AFB, was not launched during the exercise, “but the test did include the launch of a simulated interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. using performance data from previous interceptor launches.”
» Video by Missile Defense Agency of February 23 test
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Kodiak Launch Complex
GMD Interceptor Flight Test
Four years to the day after President Bush gave official notice to Russia that the United States would be withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, the MDA conducted a successful, “important” test of a Ground Based Interceptor. The interceptor was launched from the Ronald Reagan Test site, located in the Kwajalein atoll of the Marshall Islands, in Pacific Ocean. The interceptor traveled northeast, toward a location of a simulated target missile launch from Kodiak, Alaska. The data fed the interceptor about the location of the simulated target was based on previous launches.
The importance of the launch is several-fold, not the least of which is that it is the first launch of a GBI since October 2002. On the last two attempts at a launch (in December 2004 and February 2005), minor hardware or software glitches resulted in the missile shutting itself down, and therefore never leaving its silo. A “variety of components and subcomponents” were also tested. A Boeing press release called the event the “first flight test of an operationally configured interceptor.”
Today’s test was designed Flight Test-1 (FT-1), which would seem to indicate a new nomenclature, or numbering of flight tests. Integrated Flight Test-7, for example, took place in December 2001; the test attempt which had been planned for February 2005 had been designated IFT-14. A new nomenclature could be the product of the thorough reassessment said to have taken place in recent years about the program’s testing.
» December 13, 2001: Bush gives six month notice for U.S. intent to withdraw from ABM Treaty
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (RTS)
Ninth Ground Based Interceptor Emplaced in Silo at Greely
On September 18, the seventh ground-based midcourse interceptor at Fort Greely, Alaska, was emplaced in its silo, reports Boeing. The interceptor is the ninth total interceptor to be put into a silo; an additional two are at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California.
This emplacement is the first since November of 2004, when the sixth interceptor was put into a silo at Greely. Some ten interceptors were scheduled to be deployed in 2005, which when added to the existing eight would amount to eighteen in the ground
» More stories on: Deployment
» Missile system details for: Fort Greely, Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
Missile Defense Test Failure
Today the Missile Defense Agency attempted to repeat the December 15 test of the ground based midcourse missile defense system. The December 15 test attempt did not take place when the interceptor shut down in its silo rather than launching, due to a software error. The interceptor did not launch again in today’s test.
MDA spokesman Rick Lehner is quoted as saying that today’s failure was under investigation, but that there were indications that the malfunction was the ground support equipment at the test range on Kwajalein Island, and not with the interceptor missile itself. “The interceptor itself is fine and will be used for other tests,” said Lehner, “We’ll just keep trying, keep testing and hopefully we’ll be able to do another interceptor test in the next few months, using the same interceptor.”
The target missile, a mock-ICBM, was fired early Monday morning from Kodiak Island, Alaska. The interceptor which did not launch was located at the Ronald Reagan Test Site on the Kwajalein atoll in the Pacific.
Today’s failure represents another setback for the system, and demonstrates the need for further testing, but by no means does it indicate any less of a need for a missile defense.
» MDA statement on test failure
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (RTS)
Minor Software Glitch Responsible for Shutdown; Five Tests of System in 2005
The head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lt. General Henry Obering, yesterday explained that the December 15 failed attempt to test the ground based interceptor was due to a “very minor software glitch,” which can easily be remedied, according to Defense News. The glitch was said to be a “gap in the flow of electronic messages between the flight computer and the interceptor’s thrust vector controller.”
As to the actual, formal deployment of the Alaska-California based system, Obering largely repeated the remarks of Secretary Rumsfeld on December 22, that it may not be anytime soon, and that it may be made operational without “formal” announcement:
“I cannot tell you there is going to be a date certain when we will to declare anything. I can tell you we do have a capability that is out there. We continue in the process of improving it, and we continue in the process of exercising with it … and we will continue in that mode.”
Some five flight tests of the system are scheduled for 2005, including at least two attempted intercepts. Obering is also quoted as saying that the Pentagon may repeat the test, IFT-13c, as early as mid-February. The next test, IFT-14, is slated for March or April.
» Reuters on Obering explanation
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
Interceptor May be Returned to U.S. for Testing
The ground based interceptor which did not launch in the December 15 attempt at a test of the missile defense system will likely be shipped back to the U.S. from the Kwajalein missile range, according to the January 3 edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology, although no plans are yet in place to do so. After a target missile had been fired, the interceptor’s computer detected a fault which initiated an automatic shutdown.
The January 5 edition of the Aerospace Daily & Defense Report notes that the Missile Defense agency is near to determining the problem described thus far only as an “unknown anomaly.” MDA spokesman Rick Lehner was quoted as saying that “we expect to have some information within the next week or two.”
Update: The January 17 edition of Aviation Week and Space Technology reports that the interceptor will be fixed at Kwajalein, thereby eliminating the need to return it to the U.S
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
Missile Defense Test Fails
The Missile Defense Agency yesterday attempted the first full test of its ground based midcourse defense system, but the interceptor missile failed to leave its silo. The target interceptor successfully launched from Kodiak island, but the the interceptor based at the Kwajalein Test Range in the Marshall Islands did not. The MDA cited an unspecified “anomaly.” had caused the interceptor to shut down automatically in its silo.
The failed test will probably become a setback for missile defense efforts, less on the technical than the political level. The failure is a particular embarrassment since the technology involved has nothing to do with the actual intercept of a ballistic missile. Rather, it seems to be related to the simple launch of the missile, and is thus the kind of problem which has been worked out decades ago.
The failed test in no way diminishes, however, the need for missile defense. It does reinforce the need for increased testing and for more proficient and effective systems. But no weapon system is perfect. It is for just such reason that there should therefore be backups and layers in our defenses.
» MDA press release on test attempt
» More stories on: Land-Based Systems, Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (RTS)
Interceptor Installed at Vandenberg
On December 10, a 55-foot long Ground Based Interceptor was lowered into an underground silo at Vandenberg Air Force, in California, the first of two to be deployed at VAFB this year. The installation is the first in the continental United States—six are already emplaced at Fort Greely, in Alaska.
» Dec. 12: Lompoc Record: Karako on missile defense
» MDA press release on VAFB installation
» More stories on: Deployment, Land-Based Systems
» Missile system details for: Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Vandenberg Air Force Base
Sixth Interceptor in Place: First Phase of Deployment Complete
A sixth ballistic missile interceptor was yesterday installed in its silo at Fort Greely, Alaska. The interceptor is the last of those to be installed in 2004. An additional eight to ten will be emplaced in 2005, for a total of 14-16. Two interceptors are still due to be installed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California this year. The limited ground based midcourse defense system has yet to be declared operational, but such an announcement is expected before the end of the year.
» MDA press release on installation of 6th interceptor
» More stories on: Deployment, Land-Based Systems
» Missile system details for: Fort Greely, Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)
Garwin on Missile Defense
Richard Garwin writes in the November edition of the Scientific American on the need for missile defense efforts to be properly directed. He makes a number of good points about the ballistic missile threat, but his opposition to the means by which to meet that threat leaves questions unanswered. First, a summary of his main points:
» Archive of Garwin writings at FAS
» More stories on: Analysis, Policy, Space-Based Systems
» Missile system details for: Brilliant Pebbles, Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI)
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