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Plan B: Missile Defense Backups; Alternate Contractors Could Be Hired Under 2003 Budget

The Pentagon is considering hiring backup contractors to develop alternate versions of two crucial, troublesome parts of the national missile defense program: the system's rocket booster and the "kill vehicle" that hits enemy missiles.

Problems with the Boeing Co.-assembled booster have contributed to program delays of about 18 months, and a flaw in the Raytheon Co. kill vehicle -- a 120-pound device that uses sensors and thrusters to home in on the enemy warhead -- caused the system to fail on a test shot last year.

The Pentagon said yesterday the next test launch will take place next Saturday.

While program officials say they believe the problems are under control, the government is looking to buy some insurance by developing alternate hardware. "It's really a risk-reduction measure for us," said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which oversees missile defense development. "If we got into a pinch where something went wrong, we would at least like to have something to fall back on."

Increased funding under the Bush administration for ballistic missile defense -- the $ 8.3 billion it seeks for next year is an increase of $ 3 billion -- gives the Pentagon the means to consider such a move, Lehner said. BMDO and Boeing, which is the prime contractor for the national missile defense system, are evaluating which companies could potentially join the program.

"We're working with our customer to ensure the best missile defense product for our nation," Boeing spokeswoman Virnell Bruce said.

Backup contracts could be awarded as soon as the 2003 budget, program officials said. The plans were reported earlier this week in the trade journal Defense Daily.

With more than $ 50 billion spent since the early 1980s on missile defense technology and with little success to show for it, opponents said the idea of paying for backup systems proves the technology is still far from ready.

"It just goes to show how many problems they have with this entire system," said Luke Warren of the arms control group Council for a Livable World. "If they can't get their booster right, lord knows what else they can't get right."

Paying for a backup set of hardware might improve the odds of making the technology work but is a "luxury" made possible by the Bush administration's generous funding, said John Pike, who monitors military and space policy for the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria. "They've got to get rid of the money somehow," Pike said.

But Philip E. Coyle, the Pentagon's former head of operational testing, said such a step is an investment in holding down future costs. Making more contractors compete for the work means "you get the product sooner, you get a better product and in the long run you get it cheaper," said Coyle, who recommended such a move in a Pentagon report last year.

The concept for national missile defense is to use networks of satellites to monitor ballistic missile launches around the globe and then launch rockets from the United States to knock an enemy missile out of the sky. While one test launch in 1999 succeeded in destroying a target missile under tightly controlled conditions, the next two failed for a variety of reasons.

The most recent failure, last July, caused then-President Clinton to delay a decision on deploying a basic national missile defense system.

While Lockheed Martin Corp. has provided a two-stage rocket used in the test flights, Boeing is assembling the program's actual three-stage booster using commercial rocket components from United Technologies and Alliant Techsystems.

That seemingly simple Boeing booster, expected to make its first launch later this year, has been an unexpectedly difficult aspect of a program filled with unproven technology. "It wasn't quite as easy as we thought it would be," Lehner said. Problems with the booster have included such low-tech snags as glue that wouldn't hold a crucial part in place and batteries that failed on the emergency self-destruct mechanism, he said.

Similarly, the highest-profile flaw in the Raytheon-built kill vehicle was the malfunction of a relatively simple cooling device that botched the system's flight test in January 2000. A Raytheon spokesman said the company has long since fixed that problem and is satisfied with the device's progress.

The Pentagon's interest in hiring a backup contractor "does not affect our plans to go forward with the work we have been doing on the missile defense program," Raytheon spokesman Mark Day said.

Raytheon's contract with Boeing runs through 2007. The company would not disclose its value.

Copyright 2001 The Washington Post