Lompoc Record August 18, 2002
Missile-intercept test slated for Saturday
By Janene Scully
The Defense Department's next missile defense intercept flight test will take place Aug. 24 under a newly lowered veil of secrecy that has officials remaining mum about the liftoff time.
Friday's announcement of the next attempt to intercept a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile was noticeably lacking a fact typically included in Vandenberg Air Force Base launch announcements.
It's not accidental.
"The new policy now is that we're not going to announce the window," said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency. Lehner said the policy stems from security concerns and was made by Missile Defense Agency officials.
"That's just the rule now," he said.
If no launch window is released, it makes the missile defense program more secretive than the nation's once-clandestine agency responsible for the classified spy satellites.
The National Reconnaissance Office, which only admitted its existence in 1992 after 30 years of doing spy business from space, releases a "launch period," usually larger that the actual window required to put spacecraft into proper orbits.
For the past six missile defense program tests, including the most recent in March, officials released a four-hour window, typically targeting liftoff early if weather and technical problems allowed. The tests have aimed for launch between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., and sources said crews are again seeking an evening departure.
These tests, occurring close to sunset, can be some of the most picturesque launches from the base and draw some of the larger crowds as unspent fuel particles and ice in the upper atmosphere reflect sunlight to create a colorful kaleidoscope called "twilight phenomenon."
News of the clamp down in releasing information doesn't surprise program critics.
"They have basically initiated an across the board policy to reduce the amount of publicly released information about the missile defense program," said John Pike, a military analyst and director of a think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
With the United States pulling out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty in June, Pike contends missile defense program supporters believe they have won the debate on the controversial program and want to stem further controversy by minimizing publicly available information.
"That's the bottom line," said Pike.
Military officials denied that the new shroud of secrecy stems from past attempts by missile defense program protesters to infiltrate Vandenberg's remote sections by sea and land to interfere with the test.
The time isn't the only secret aspect of this $100 million Ground-Based Midcourse Defense test that involves a modified Minuteman missile launched from Vandenberg serving as the target. Another modified missile will carrying a prototype "kill vehicle" that will attempt to intercept dummy warhead 140 miles above the central Pacific Ocean.
Officials had already decided to keep secret how many decoys, and their characteristics, involved in this test, explaining they didn't want to give adversaries information to develop countermeasures to defeat the system designed to protect the United States from limited, long-range missile attacks.
Some reports earlier year this quote a member of the Senate Armed Services subcommittee upset over being excluded from program details. But Lehner denied the claims, saying Defense officials will provide briefings to anyone.
This will be the seventh intercept test of the program formerly known as National Missile Defense. So far the system has achieved four successful intercepts and two misses.
© Copyright 2001 Pulitzer Central Coast Newspapers
