All Systems Go For Missile Defense Test

SPACEDAILY

Washington (AFP) July 6, 2000 -
All systems are go for an attempted missile intercept over the Pacific that will help decide whether the United States goes forward with deployment of the controversial national missile defense (NMD), US officials said Thursday.

Hit or miss, the test late Friday will not answer all questions about the system's effectiveness or quell a raging debate over whether the spread of ballistic missiles warrants tinkering with a nuclear balance of power that has kept the peace for 50 years.

But the outcome will determine whether the Pentagon certifies NMD as ready for deployment by 2005, a crucial factor in President Bill Clinton's decision this fall whether to start construction of the first phase of the system.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral Craig Quigley called it "the last planned shot" before US Defense Secretary William Cohen makes a formal recommendation to the president on the system's technological feasibility.

Final preparations were underway Thursday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands for the test, officials said.

"All systems are go right now," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. "Everything looks good for a test to take place Friday."

Weather is forecasted to be good although there could be delays if the range at Vandenberg is obscured by fog, officials said.

"But we don't see any big storms, and mechanically the systems are ready to go," Quigley said.

Armed with a dummy warhead and a balloon decoy, a modified Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile is to be fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base over the Pacific after a four-hour launch window opens at 10:00 p.m. Friday in Washington (0200 GMT Saturday).

Poised at Kwajalein to intercept it is another missile, which will carry into space a 60 kilogram (130-pound) "exoatmospheric kill vehicle" that is designed to destroy the incoming warhead by ramming it at closing speeds of some 24,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) per hour.

Synchronizing the hoped-for collision are an array of early warning satellites, a ground radar in Hawaii and a prototype of a powerful targeting radar in Kwajalein called an X-Band radar, which will track the warhead and balloon and help guide the kill vehicle to its target.

Linking them all together are computerized command centers in Colorado and Kwajalein, which will process data from the various sensors, project the targets trajectory and fire the interceptor missile.

From launch to intercept (or miss), the 100 million dollar test is expected to take only about 30 minutes but span the nearly 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) between California and the Marshall Islands, which lie in the middle of the Pacific.

Opponents to the system have mobilized for the tests, holding news conferences and circulating a letter signed by Nobel prize-winning scientists calling the missile shield "premature, wasteful and dangerous."

The environmentalist group Greenpeace announced it was sending its vessel MV Arctic Sunrise into waters off California that the air force has declared a hazard zone during the test.

Pentagon officials have played down chances of success.

The last intercept attempt in January failed when the infrared sensors that kill vehicle uses to find the warhead failed in the final seconds. The first intercept attempt in October succeeded, although under less demanding conditions.

But senior Pentagon officials now say that even in the event of a miss, the Defense Department may still recommend deployment of the system depending on the seriousness of the failure.

They say construction must begin by spring on the site of the system's X-band radar in Shemya Island, Alaska if the system is to be deployed by 2005, when US intelligence believes North Korea will have a missile capable of hitting the United States.

The system is designed to protect the United States against a limited missile attack by potential adversaries like North Korea, Iran or Iraq -- not an all-out attack by Russia. China's smaller ICBM arsenal is likely to be affected, however, according to experts.

Clinton has said he will weigh the threat, the cost, the technological feasibility of the system, and the impact of deployment on international arms control.

Russia, China and others have warned that deployment, which would mean withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, would trigger a destabilizing arms race.

File Photo: A payload launch vehicle carrying a prototype interceptor is launched from Meck Island in the Kwajalein Missile Range on Jan. 18, 2000, for a planned intercept of a ballistic missile target over the central Pacific Ocean. The target vehicle, a modified Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 6:19 p.m., PST, and the vehicle carrying the prototype interceptor was launched about 20 minutes later. The intercept was not achieved. DoD photo.

US Nobel scientists says missile shield would be dangerous
Washington (AFP) July 6, 2000 - Fifty US Nobel Prize laureates warned President Bill Clinton on Thursday that deployment of a National Missile Defense (NMD) shield would be "premature, wasteful, and dangerous."

In a letter addressed to Clinton, and endorsed by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the scientists, drawn from various fields, said NMD "would offer little protection and would do grave harm to this nation's core security interests."

Particularly, a dangerous arms race would unfold as new offensive weapons were developed that would render the system ineffective, according to the letter.

The FAS was set up in 1945 by scientists who built the first atomic bomb. The letter was presented at a news conference here at which other bodies, including the American Physical Society and the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers (of which the FAS is a member), likewise questioned the proposed NMD deployment.

The move by the US scientists came as the Pentagon prepared to supervise an attempted missile intercept Friday over the Pacific -- the third such test of the system. If the intercept goes as planned, the Pentagon will almost certainly recommend that the United States go forward with deployment by 2005 of the initial phase of the 60 billion dollar program.

The final decision on whether to start construction of the first phase of the system rests with Clinton.

The missile shield is touted as a defense against small, hostile states said to be developing missiles capable of hitting the United States.

"While the benefits of the proposed anti-ballistic missile system are dubious, the dangers created by a decision to deploy are clear," the Nobel laureates and the FAS said in the letter.

"It would be difficult to persuade Russia or China that the United States is wasting tens of billions of dollars on an ineffective missile system against small states that are unlikely to launch a missile attack on the US," it said.

The letter was drafted by Hans Bethe, the 1967 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, who headed the group that developed the first nuclear bomb.

"The Russians and Chinese must therefore conclude that the presently planned system is a stage in developing a bigger system directed against them. They may respond by restarting an arms race in ballistic missiles and having missiles in a dangerous 'launch-on-warning' positions."

"Even if the next planned test of the proposed anti-ballistic missile system works as planned, any movement toward deployment would be premature, wasteful and dangerous," the letter said.

Daryl Kimball, director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers said, "It is the opinion of a broad segment of the US scientific community that the NMD has serious technical and national security flaws" and that a decision should be deferred to the next US administration.

The American Physical Society, in a statement presented at the same news conference, noted that a decision on deploying the NMD was "scheduled for the next few months."

"The tests that have been conducted, or are planned, for the period fall far short of those required to provide confidence in the 'technical feasibility' called for in last year's NMD deployment legislation," it said.

The society was not taking a position "with respect to the wisdom of the NMD deployment," but only on the question of its technical viability, it added.

Lisbeth Gronlund, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, told reporters that the Pentagon's tests simplified the threat presented by the latest missile technology.

An enemy would be likely to use a range of counter-measures and decoys to confuse an intercepting missile. "The Clinton administration and Congress must work together to implement a more realistic test program before any decision on NMD deployment is made," she said.

ABMDAILY

Greenpeace Targets ABM Tests
Los Angeles (AFP) July 5, 2000 - Greenpeace launched a campaign against the US national missile defense system Wednesday, establishing a media center near a California air force base where the system will be tested Friday, the organization said Wednesday.

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