DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: MDA Awarded Contract To Lockheed Martin In Conjunction To Upgrades For THAAD System

DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: MDA Awarded Contract To Lockheed Martin In Conjunction To Upgrades For THAAD System
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources DTN News & U.S. DoD February 3, 2012
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 4, 2012: The Missile Defense Agency is announcing the award of a sole-source indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to Lockheed Martin Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif.  The total ceiling award value is $515,400,000. Under this follow-on contract, the contractor will be responsible for development, integration, and testing of any upgrades to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. 

Task orders issued under this contract will address the continued development, enhancement, and testing of the THAAD components/system.  The THAAD element is comprised of the following components:  interceptor, THAAD fire control and communication, launcher, peculiar support equipment, and AN/TPY-2 radar integrated into a weapon system.  

Examples of task orders include, but are not limited to, communications upgrades, obsolescence mitigation, flight and ground testing, and spiral development to further integrate THAAD in the BMDS architecture through development of unifying missile defense functions.  

The work will be performed in Sunnyvale, Calif., and Huntsville, Ala.  The ordering period is from Feb. 1, 2012 through Jan. 31, 2017.  Fiscal 2012 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be used to incrementally fund the initial orders.  

Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  This is not a Foreign Military Sales acquisition.  The MDA, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the buying activity (HQ0147-12-D-0001).

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources DTN News & U.S. DoD February 3, 2012
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DTN News - Defense News: Russia Agrees To Cooperate With NATO On Missile Defense Shield

DTN News - Defense News: Russia Agrees To Cooperate With NATO On Missile Defense Shield

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Ilya Arkhipov and Gregory Viscusi - Bloomberg

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - November 20, 2010: Russia agreed to cooperate with NATO on a missile-defense system, expanding cooperation between the former Cold War adversaries as President Barack Obama pushes the U.S. Senate to ratify a nuclear-arms reduction treaty.

“Today we have not only buried ghosts of the past that have haunted us for too long,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen after alliance leaders met today with Russia

n President Dmitry Medvedev at the end of a two-day summit in Lisbon. “We have made a fresh start.”

NATO is trying to turn the anti-missile system -- initially opposed by the Kremlin -- into a fulcrum for cooperation with Russia as part of the U.S.-driven “reset” of East-West relations. Russia and the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization will create a “working group” on missile defense, according to an official Russian fact sheet.

An anti-missile shield to protect Europe and North America “offers a role for all of our allies to respond to the threats of our times,” Obama said. “We look forward to working with Russia to build our cooperation with them in this area.”

Both NATO and Russia face “common challenges and we have important common interests,” a joint NATO-Russia statement said.

Allied officials said the 10-year, 200 million-euro ($273 million) cost of the shield, as modified by Obama from a proposal by former President George W. Bush, makes it a bargain at a time of shrinking defense budgets. It would build on a smaller-scale system being developed to protect troops in the field.

Bush Plan

Russia had objected to the Bush administration plan, which foresaw permanent anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, two nations dominated by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Russia viewed the Bush plan as a threat to its strategic arsenal.

Obama’s plan does away with fixed bases, relying on mobile and sea-based radars and interceptors that the U.S. says would be easier to tie in with Russian systems.

Obama said NATO leaders back him on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, saying it will enhance European security as well.

The treaty is awaiting ratification by the U.S. Senate. The president’s push for a vote suffered a setback this week when Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, the chamber’s second-ranking Republican and one of his party’s leading voices on nuclear-weapons policy, said the issues are too complex to resolve by year’s end.

Ratification Concern

“Early ratification of the START treaty would be to the benefit to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area,” Rasmussen said. “It is a matter of concern that a delayed ratification of the START treaty would be damaging to the overall security environment in Europe. So we strongly urge both parties to ratify the START treaty as early as possible.”

NATO members Turkey and France also raised questions about the missile shield. The U.S. aimed to sway Turkey by not naming in a summit statement its neighbor Iran as the potential missile threat, and by offering the prospect of a degree of Turkish military control over the system. French officials said they agreed to sign on after winning language that NATO considers the shield as a complement to nuclear deterrence, and not a replacement.

--With assistance from Patrick Donahue, James Neuger and Kate Andersen Brower in Lisbon. Editors: Leon Mangasarian, James Hertling.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Lisbon at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net; Gregory Viscusi in Lisbon at gviscusi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net; Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

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DTN News: Missile Defense Agency Selects TASC For Ballistic Missile Defense System Security Contract

DTN News: Missile Defense Agency Selects TASC For Ballistic Missile Defense System Security Contract

* TASC team to provide MDA with program security, security engineering, information technology/information assurance, and office operations Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) CHANTILLY, Va., - March 3, 2010: The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has selected TASC, Inc. to provide protection support and technical services to the Ballistic Missile Defense System. TASC will compete for task order awards under the five-year MDA Special Programs Office indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract. Work on the contract will be conducted at MDA locations across the United States. Under the terms of the contract, TASC and its industry team will provide the MDA with program security, security engineering, information technology/information assurance, and office operations. "TASC will partner with the Missile Defense Agency in its mission to develop and employ enhanced protection methodologies to preserve Ballistic Missile Defense System superiority, assist in predicting and countering existing and emerging world threats, while pursuing new technologies and capabilities," said Wood Parker, President and CEO for TASC. "Our industry team has the necessary experience and capabilities to support the MDA and help the U.S. Government bring national missile defense from concept to reality." For more than 20 years, TASC has helped intelligence and defense organizations optimize protection of sensitive acquisitions, activities and operations critical to national security while helping predict, respond to and solve real-world, time-sensitive challenges. "TASC has been instrumental in developing executable solutions to maximize the protection of activities operating in space, air, on the ground and at sea, and we are committed to providing these critical services to the Missile Defense Agency," said Parker. About TASC TASC is the premier, non-conflicted provider of advanced system engineering, integration and decision-support services across the intelligence community, Department of Defense and civilian agencies of the federal government. For more than 40 years, TASC has partnered with our customers toward one goal—the success of their missions. Our broad portfolio of services includes system and policy analysis; program, financial and acquisition management; enterprise engineering and integration; advanced concept and technology development; and test and evaluation. With nearly 5,000 employees, TASC generates more than $1.6 billion in annual revenue. For more information and career opportunities, visit our website at http://www.tasc.com/. Approved for Public Release 10-MDA-5216 (23 FEB 10) Material cleared for public release can be reused in its original form any time, any place. Any updating, changing or combining of previously cleared material will form a new document that requires the material be re-submitted for a new public release clearance. Please re-submit any new material with the past clearance documentation. A marked copy of the document indicating where new information is placed will help speed the review.

Missile Defense In India

Missile Defense In India

*By Bharath Gopalaswamy - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

(NSI News Source Info) March 2, 2009: A few weeks ago, Indian officials held preliminary talks with the United States about purchasing a missile defense shield from it. "India is a partner of ours, and we want to provide it with whatever it needs to protect itself," a U.S. official told the Financial Times. Already, Indian officials and scientists have witnessed some simulations of the U.S. missile defense system, along with a couple of live tests. Washington even has offered to sell the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system to India. Article Highlights *Recently, Indian officials approached the United States about purchasing a missile defense shield. *New Delhi's once casual interest in missile defense has intensified as its regional threats have increased. *The United States believes that a strong New Delhi can help protect U.S. assets in South Asia and counterbalance China. A few weeks ago, Indian officials held preliminary talks with the United States about purchasing a missile defense shield from it. "India is a partner of ours, and we want to provide it with whatever it needs to protect itself," a U.S. official told the Financial Times. Already, Indian officials and scientists have witnessed some simulations of the U.S. missile defense system, along with a couple of live tests. Washington even has offered to sell the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 system to India. India's interest in strategic missile defense dates back to 1983 when New Delhi initiated an "Integrated Missile Development Program." The program included not only offensive missiles such as the nuclear-capable Prithvi and Agni, but also the Akash, a surface-to-air missile that had the potential to provide India with theater missile defense capabilities. Later in the 1990s, India's Defence Research & Development Organization and the country's military discussed initiating conceptual missile defense studies. Around the same time, the Indian military had a few conversations with Israel and Russia about how they could help New Delhi advance its air defense systems. Although such talk clearly demonstrated an Indian interest in missile defense, it was confined to professional military officers and low-level bureaucrats. The interest of India's elected leadership intensified a few years later, their support growing for a variety of reasons. First, 9/11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan turned Pakistan into a U.S. ally, triggering speculation that the Pakistani government might be overturned by anti-American Islamic fundamentalists who would then control Islamabad's nuclear arsenal. And if Pakistani nuclear weapons fell into such hands, India feared it might be the first target. Secondly, some in India believe that a domestic missile defense capability might be able to check Pakistan more generally. Ever since Islamabad obtained nuclear weapons, it has emboldened its strategy of supporting insurgencies within India to settle outstanding political differences--i.e., Kashmir. Missile defense, the argument goes, would prove instrumental in providing New Delhi reassurance and protection since Pakistan's nuclear weapons could be countered both offensively and defensively. Finally, few countries in the world face the missile threats that India does. Of course, there's Pakistan and its Ghauri and Shaheen missile series--both of which possess ranges longer than 1,000 kilometers. But there's also nearby China, a fellow nuclear-armed state equipped with DF-21 missiles that can travel more than 2,000 kilometers. So it's no surprise that the upper-echelons of the Indian government have begun to show significant interest in defense technologies that can, at least theoretically, combat such threats. A ballistic missile flight from Sargodha, Pakistan, could reach New Delhi in about 5-7 minutes. As such, Indian missile defense proponents envision the system working as follows: A technically complex and vast constellation of early warning sensors would detect the missile immediately after it is launched. This part of the system is already more or less in place; the Green Pine radar, which India purchased from Israel around 2002 and is situated about 200 kilometers north of New Delhi, can detect a missile 90 seconds after it has been launched--at least on a preliminary basis. The next step is to determine whether the signal picked up by the radar is that of an incoming missile or a false alarm. Complicating matters is that India and Pakistan share a border, making for shorter ballistic missile flights. For example, the estimated total missile flight times are 8-13 minutes for ranges of 600-2,000 kilometers. The flight times can be even less if the missile is flown in a depressed trajectory. Such a short time period places stringent conditions on procedures for evaluating and verifying warnings. There would be no time to consult or deliberate after receiving this warning. In other words, any response would have to be predetermined, presenting a significant likelihood of accidental nuclear war from false alarms. Oddly, despite such potentially catastrophic consequences, in India the debate about missile defense has become a debate about India's burgeoning ties with Washington as a part of New Delhi's "Next Steps in Security Partnership"--a 2002 diplomatic initiative between the United States and India to expand their cooperation in civilian nuclear activities and civilian space programs, along with broadening their dialogue on missile defense to promote nonproliferation and to ease the transfer of advanced technologies to India. For the United States, missile defense initially was only one aspect of its budding bilateral relationship with New Delhi. But over time missile defense has come to represent something larger in the relationship. Quite simply, it represents Washington's implicit support for India against Pakistan, without, of course, supporting an explicit Indian recourse to offensive military strategies. Along these lines, there's every reason to expect the United States to continue to be supportive of India's emergence as a counterweight to China. Ultimately, technology will decide the operational capability of missile defense in India. But for the time being, it can be assumed that New Delhi's decisions with regard to missile defense are strongly linked to the changing tenor of U.S.-Indian relations.

Obama Ignores Breakthroughs In Anti-Missile Technology

Obama Ignores Breakthroughs In Anti-Missile Technology

(NSI News Source Info) February 20, 2009: As evidence mounts that North Korea is preparing to launch a long-range missile – possibly, an InterContinental Ballistic Missile with enough range to reach the United States – President Obama no longer has to put U.S. nuclear forces on alert or threaten a pre-emptive first strike on North Korea, thanks to national missile defense interceptors deployed in California and Alaska. When North Korea conducted its first test of a missile with ICBM capabilities in 2006, “some [of the President Bush’s advisors] were urging him to launch a pre-emptive attack” on North Korea, Lt. Gen. Henry A. “Trey” Obering III reveals in a soon-to-be released documentary produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Unhappy with that option, President Bush rushed into deployment sea-based missile defense systems on board of Aegis-class cruisers in the Pacific that were still under development and had never been used in combat. He also placed on alert the handful of silo-based interceptors his administration had installed at Fort Greely, Alaska starting in July 2004, and ordered his commanders to intercept and destroy any incoming North Korean missile, something they had never done under battlefield conditions before. The president would not have had that option without the $100 billion the United States taxpayer has invested in missile defense research and deployed systems since 1983, Lt. Gen. Obering and other experts interviewed in the new Heritage Foundation documentary said. Lacking credible missile defense systems, “the only other ability you have is to apologize to those that die,” Lt. Gen. Obering said. Not to develop such systems would be “morally bankrupt,” he added. The Heritage Foundation documentary, screened recently to a select audience of Washington, DC insiders, takes its title, “33 Minutes,” from the time it would take an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) to reach the United States if launched from North Korea or Iran. The Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. intelligence community has now reversed its highly controversial National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that claimed Iran had shut down its nuclear weapons program in late 2003. U.S. intelligence officials now “expect the Islamic Republic to reach [nuclear] development milestones this year,” the Times reported, noting that President Obama himself described Iran’s “development of a nuclear weapon” as one reason giving urgency to his plans to talk to Tehran’s leaders. And yet, despite these alarming developments in Iran and North Korea, the Obama administration has said it plans to review funding of missile defense systems, arguing that the technology must be “proven” for current deployment plans to continue. Heritage Foundation expert Dr. James Jay Carafano, who helped produce the documentary, scoffed at such criticism. “We are long past the time when you could question whether this technology works,” he said, citing dozens of successful tests. Missile Defense Agency officials frequently have described their kinetic kill vehicles, which strike incoming missiles head on and destroy them without using explosives, as “hitting a bullet with a bullet.” But in recent years, the technology has gotten even better, Lt. Gen. Obering said. “We are now able to hit a spot on a bullet with a bullet.” Heritage is encouraging its 400,000 members to host home-screenings of “33 Minutes,” and hopes to strike a television deal, Heritage vice-president Rebecca Hagelin said on Wednesday night after the screening. “We are also making two ten-minute shorts, a seven minute trailer you can download from our website, and even a two-minute version,” she said. Using dramatic computerized simulation of a nuclear missile attack on New York, the documentary also includes an exclusive interview with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who rarely has appeared in public since a series of strokes slowed her down in 2002. As Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher was a strong supporter of the President Ronald Reagan’s initial missile defense program, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. Speaking slowly but emphatically, the “Iron Lady” lived up to her reputation, warning that nuclear missiles in the hands of rogue dictators pose an unacceptable threat to the free world. “If America is held hostage, then the free world is held hostage,” Lady Thatcher said. “American leadership is essential. You know what you must do. You must do the right thing.” Dr. Kim R. Holmes, a Heritage vice president for Defense and Foreign Policy studies, said after the screening that recent comments about missile defense from President Obama and others in his administration were “not encouraging.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has stated publicly that our deployed missile defense systems “could be a bargaining chip” with the Russians and the Iranians, he said. There is a real possibility that the arms controls battles of the 1980s and 1990s that pitted conservatives against disarmament liberals could come back under the Democrat-controlled Congress, he warned. “History could repeat itself with a new arms control treaty” that could ban missile defense systems. “In a way, we’re victims of our own success,” Dr. Holmes said. Once President Bush took office in 2001 and announced that the United States was withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the administration talked less about missile defense as a Republican-controlled Congress appropriated tens of billions of dollars to test and deploy real systems. That could all change under Obama, Dr. Holmes warned. “We want to put missile defense back on the conservative agenda,” he said. Dr. Carafano noted recent polls showing that 90% of the American people believe a missile strike against America is a credible threat, while a majority believe that missile defense systems should be funded and deployed. “There is a huge credibility gap between what Washington wants, and what America wants,” he said.

Boeing Wins $250M to Support Missile Defense / Boeing Awarded $250 Million Missile Defense Support Contract

Boeing Wins $250M to Support Missile Defense / Boeing Awarded $250 Million Missile Defense Support Contract

(NSI News Source Info) ST. LOUIS - February 6, 2009: Boeing has been awarded a one-year, $250 million Missile Defense Agency (MDA) contract for Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) maintenance and operations support, ensuring the United States' only defense against long-range ballistic missiles remains ready for operational service.

The contract, awarded Feb. 2, includes an option for 2010 and covers operator and maintainer training, supply chain services, on-site engineering support and technical data development. "Boeing has led the missile defense industry team from inception to operation," said Terry Kunkel, director, GMD Operations and Sustainment for Boeing. "This contract recognizes the GMD team's unmatched performance and builds upon the progress of this vital national security program."

GMD, an integral element of the global ballistic missile defense system, consists of interceptors in underground silos, radars, command and control facilities, communications terminals and a 20,000-mile, fiber-optic communications network. The program has more than 400 partners and suppliers with operations in 36 states and operational sites in Alaska, California and Colorado, as well as the Sea-Based X-Band (SBX) radar system.

MDA recently announced it will solicit competitive bids for future GMD operations and sustainment support no later than 2011. As an industry leader in performance-based logistics, Boeing is well positioned to compete for and win additional GMD support contracts.

"We rely on talent from across Boeing and our industry teammates to bring the best value, the lowest risk and highest performance to our customer," said Kunkel. "With 11 performance-based logistics programs currently under contract, we have the necessary experience to support the Missile Defense Agency today and in the future."

A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is one of the world's largest space and defense businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world's largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is a $32 billion business with 70,000 employees worldwide