More Monies For Missile Defense

Standard Missile-2 Block IV Launch at White Sands
(Photo from Missile Defense Agency)

More Dollars for 'Multiple Kill' Missile Defenses -- The Danger Room

On Friday, the Pentagon announced that it had given Raytheon a $442 million contract for a system that could knock several missiles out of the sky, at once.

The current system -- the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, on today's Ground Based Interceptor anti-missiles -- is a "hit-to-kill" system that destroys an incoming target by sheer force of impact (this is usually described in journalistic shorthand as "a bullet hitting a bullet"). This new Multiple Kill Vehicle would allow a single missile defense interceptor to smack down multiple targets. That's especially important if the ballistic missile shield is to work: In the real world, an incoming ballistic missile is likely to deploy decoys to 'fool' the interceptor. If a number of small, independently targeted kill vehicles can be packaged on an interceptor booster, it increases the likelihood that all the objects in a "threat cluster" can be destroyed.

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My Comment: Signing contacts before a new administration takes power. Especially an Obama administration that has made it very clear that they would kill this particular program.