LIHU‘E — Concerned about the future of the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands near Kekaha as a result of recently announced substantial cuts in federal defense spending? Fear not, said Rear Adm. Alan B. “Brad” Hicks,
LIHU‘E — Concerned about the future of the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands near Kekaha as a result of recently announced substantial cuts in federal defense spending?
Fear not, said Rear Adm. Alan B. “Brad” Hicks, program director of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense and commander of the Navy missile defense command.
In a telephone interview Friday morning, Hicks said even with the announced federal defense cuts, President Barack Obama’s proposed military budget is “just as intense, if not more intense,” than the current budget, in terms of emphasis on missile-defense development.
“PMRF is safe,” said Hicks, adding that the diversity of PMRF, its vast sea space for testing, development and evaluation purposes, the multiple tracking and other equipment at Makaha Ridge, Koke‘e and Ni‘ihau, and other features, make it irreplaceable especially in light of current missile threats from North Korea and Iran.
The base is “absolutely critical, a national asset” for fleet training, future testing and other uses, Hicks said.
It can’t be duplicated or replaced, Hicks said while in Honolulu during a layover on his way home after being at PMRF for Thursday evening’s successful test in the latest of a series of hit-to-kill missile tests involving U.S. Navy ships detecting, tracking and eliminating target missiles fired from land at PMRF.
The Aegis missile-defense system is the centerpiece of the U.S. Navy’s missile-defense program, with 16 ships in the Pacific fleet equipped with the state-of-the-art system which can track multiple missile threats, design intercept solutions and launch anti-missile missiles.
The newest updates of the Aegis, aboard the USS Lake Erie based at Pearl Harbor on O‘ahu, performed exactly as designed Thursday in their first test at sea, he said.
“We’re very, very pleased. We’re ecstatic,” said Hicks.
The initial data is all positive, though it will take several months to go through the loads of data generated by Thursday’s tests, he said.
Hicks said the complexity of Thursday’s test meant there were lots of things that could have gone wrong, but didn’t.
Not only did the Aegis system perform as expected, but Hicks said the crews aboard the ships did their jobs as well. “We’re very pleased with the performance. We’re pleased with the stability, how the crew operated it,” he said.
“We learned a lot.”
After Stellar Avenger, the missile-to-missile test, the three Pearl-Harbor-based ships, the USS Hopper, USS O’Kane and USS Lake Erie, participated in the first live engineering evaluation of Aegis BMD’s next system upgrade.
Engineers and ships crews recently completed installation and evaluation of an advanced version of the Aegis BMD weapon system.
For the first time, the USS Lake Erie used this advanced system during a live firing to evaluate all fire-control functions, including launch of a simulated SM-3 Block IB (the newest standard missile, or SM).
The USS Lake Erie will fire in late 2010 the new, real SM-3 Block IB using this advanced weapon system, according to Chris Taylor, MDA spokesperson.
This advanced Aegis BMD system is expected to improve the probability of kill against advanced threats, said Taylor, who also came to Kaua‘i for Thursday’s test and will be back for the next round of testing in October.
Riki Ellison, chairman and founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a nonprofit organization, said Thursday’s success was a “tremendous confidence-builder” for the U.S. military, as it “tested the direct capability that would be able to destroy and intercept what was fired by North Korea on July 2 and July 4.”
“The military is not going to tell you that, but that’s what I’m telling you,” Ellison said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon.
Taylor said a similar test, with a target missile launched from Alaska and a successful intercept missile fired from California, was designed to imitate the U.S. response to a potential launch by North Korea against U.S. states, possessions or allies.
Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors of Moorestown, N.J. is the combat system engineering agent and prime contractor for the Aegis BMD weapon system and vertical launch system installed in Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers. Raytheon Missile Systems of Tucson, Ariz. is the prime contractor for the SM-3 missile.
On the subject of civilian contractors, Hicks said between engineers, data analysts, target team members and others, some 70 to 80 civilians came to Kaua‘i for the Thursday test. Many of them brought family members and used the occasion to get in vacations either before or after the test, Hicks said.
Hicks and many of them will be returning to Kaua‘i in October for another series of tests that will involve many of the military and civilian contractors spending three weeks or more on the island.
The October tests will include another intercept attempt, plus a series of exercises involving the tracking of various targets, Hicks said.
To watch video of the launch, go to “TGI video” at www.kauaiworld.com.
