Back to news

August 11, 2020 | International, Aerospace

Support to pursue Hawaii-based missile defense radar continues after DoD drops funding

By:

WASHINGTON — Support is growing both in Congress and in the Pentagon to pursue a Hawaii-based ballistic missile defense radar that the Missile Defense Agency did not include in its fiscal 2021 funding request.

Previous MDA budget requests in FY19 and FY20 asked for funding for the discriminating radar as well as another somewhere else in the Pacific. The plan in FY19 was to field the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii, or HDR-H, by FY23, which meant military construction would have taken place beginning in FY21. Then in FY20, MDA requested $247.7 million for the radar. Lockheed Martin received an award to develop the radar in December 2018.

But in FY21, funding for both the Hawaiian radar and the Pacific radar was missing in the request. MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill said in February, when the request was released, that the agency decided to hit the brakes on its plans to set up the radars in the Pacific, instead planning to take a new look at the sensor architecture in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command region to figure out what is necessary to handle emerging threats.

Hill noted that the area is covered by a forward-deployed AN/TPY-2 radar in Hawaii as well as the deployable Sea-Based X-Band radar. Additionally, Aegis ships with their radars are mobile and can be repositioned as needed to address threats in the near term, he added.

Yet, over the summer, the Hawaiian radar gained traction in Congress via funding support in the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee's version of the FY21 defense spending bill and the Senate Armed Services Committee's version of the defense policy bill.

The House subcommittee injected $133 million to pursue the homeland defense radar in Hawaii, and the SASC added in $162 million to continue HDR-H development. The SASC also included language that essentially reminded the Pentagon that HDR-H was a response to a mandate in the FY18 National Defense Authorization Act to improve coverage for the threat of ballistic missiles in Hawaii.

The HDR-H was also listed as an unfunded requirement for FY21 by Indo-Pacific Command.

The SASC also directed the MDA to provide an updated plan that accounts for delays related to finding a site in Hawaii, noting it expects the Pentagon to fund the program in subsequent budget requests.

During a presentation at the virtually held Space and Missile Defense Symposium on Aug. 4, Hill showed a slide listing focus areas for the agency in FY21. The presentation included the currently unfunded radar, third from the top of the list.

“The potential for getting a radar onto Hawaii as part of another major sensor allows us to have that launch-all-the-way-to-intercept view out in a very large ocean area in the Pacific,” Hill said.

The HDR-H is categorized as a focus area for the MDA “because if the [Defense] Department decides to move forward with HDR-H, then the HDR-H will be deployed as part of the U.S. homeland defense architecture against long-range threats,” Mark Wright, MDA spokesman, told Defense News in an Aug. 6 statement.

The missile defense architecture “must evolve with advancements of the threat,” he added. “Space sensors do not replace but complement ground-based radars by providing track custody during radar coverage gaps. Having both terrestrial radar and space sensors provides dual phenomenology to accurately track and discriminate the threat as it continues to become more complex.”

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2020/08/07/support-to-pursue-hawaii-based-missile-defense-radar-continues-after-dod-drops-funding/

On the same subject

  • US Army modernisation challenged by incomplete planning, says GAO report - Army Technology

    July 17, 2024 | International, Land, Security

    US Army modernisation challenged by incomplete planning, says GAO report - Army Technology

    A GAO report has found that the US Army's rapid modernisation process has seen material delivered to troops without adequate planning.

  • Army plans to stop building newest CH-47 variant in FY20, except for special ops

    March 15, 2019 | International, Aerospace

    Army plans to stop building newest CH-47 variant in FY20, except for special ops

    By: Jen Judson UPDATE — This story was updated to reflect the number of EMD Block II Chinooks under contract with the U.S. Army WASHINGTON — The Army is planning to stop procuring the newest version of the CH-47 F-model Chinook for the conventional force after fiscal year 2020, closing out the program at the end of the engineering and manufacturing development phase. While details on the plan are not yet available (more budget materials are slated to post March 18), the Army Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters, in a March 14 interview at the Pentagon, that the service will finish buying EMD versions of the Block II Chinook in FY20 and will only buy G-model Chinooks for Army Special Operations beyond that. Boeing is currently under contract to build three Block II EMD Chinooks. The Army decided to cut its production of Chinook Block II aircraft as part of a larger effort to find funding to cover major modernization priorities in the near-term including plans to design and bring online two new, state-of-the-art helicopters — a Long-Range Assault and an Attack Reconnaissance aircraft. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/smr/federal-budget/2019/03/14/army-plans-to-stop-building-newest-ch-47-variant-in-fy20-except-for-special-ops/

  • Lockheed, Istari partner to demonstrate digital aircraft certification

    August 20, 2024 | International, Aerospace

    Lockheed, Istari partner to demonstrate digital aircraft certification

    The firm will use its digital engineering platform to modify and certify a drone — in this case, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works' X-56A.

All news