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Missile Defense Momentum Builds In Europe
Europe will never match the U.S.’s passion for missile defense; but step-by-step, Washington’s NATO partners are moving to build up capacities that could augment and expand the shield the Pentagon is creating.
Progress will be slow and incremental, though, and—in terms of budget expenditure—will remain a mere fraction of what the U.S. commits to the mission area.
Nevertheless, there is clear momentum in Europe to do more, even if the main motivator is industrial base considerations: France wants to ensure that its missile sector does not lose out to U.S. rivals in providing interceptors to European and other forces, and the Netherlands wants to sustain advanced naval radar capacities.
In the NATO context, budgets are less important than symbolic steps, and this is underscored by the members’ recent move to award a €2.5 million ($3.4 million) contract to an industry team led by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), which will define the first elements of a plan that will enlarge the theater missile defense system to cover NATO territory and populations in Europe. Last year, NATO decided that it wanted to protect territory instead of just deployed forces. It was a long political battle, so this study effort—no matter how paltry the funding—has significant implications for the alliance’s future.
Work under the year-long effort is to be performed at the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency in The Hague, and “the results will then be taken forward for implementation in the NATO command-and-control network to broaden the capabilities of the NATO commander well beyond those demonstrated recently in missile defense testing between the U.S. and NATO elements last month,†the organization said in announcing the contract.
Alessandro Pera, manager for the Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) program—the command, control and communications backbone for the alliance’s missile shield—says that under the new contract award, “we will work as a team with our industry and national partners, in close consultation with both the NATO military and relevant NATO committees, to ensure we get the job done.â€
The NATO contract follows a November 2010 decision at the Lisbon summit to provide the alliance with an additional layer of capability to protect Europe.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands, which has had a longtime interest in a missile shield, is pressing ahead to build up its own capacities. The Dutch defense ministry plans to expand the capabilities of the Thales Smart-L radar on Dutch frigates to take on BMD roles. The program’s value is estimated at €100-250 million, including logistics support and spares.
Other European navies using the sensor may follow the Dutch lead.
Dutch Defense Minister Hans Hillen notes that the Smart-L effort would help address the BMD sensor shortage within the NATO alliance. Citing NATO’s decision last year to take a more expansive approach to BMD, Hillen says Smart-L could give the ALTBMD command-and-control backbone the required long-range target-detection information. The sensor also could provide accurate launch-point detection analysis to help identify where a threat originates.
The Netherlands has already carried out a sensor trial for the expanded role in cooperation with the U.S. Navy. The move does not include the purchase of Raytheon Standard Missile SM-3 interceptors.
Both hardware and software modifications to the combat management system are needed. All four De Zeven Provincien-class frigates would be modified to ensure that two can be deployed, even as one is in maintenance and the fourth is being readied for operations.
Thales is due to complete a series of studies to prepare for the acquisition of the upgrade in the third quarter of 2012. The goal is to have the first frigates ready for operations in 2017. All four should be upgraded by the end of that year.
Although the Netherlands is leading the program, other Smart-L users, including the German navy and Denmark, have been monitoring the effort. France also has shown interest in the system, Hillen said in a letter to legislators.
France also wants to upgrade its Aster 30 interceptor to give it a basic BMD capability, although a formal contract has not been awarded.
In addition, Astrium Space Transportation, the prime contractor for France’s missile defense program, has already proposed a plan to validate the underlying technology for a €1 billion missile defense system dubbed Exoguard. The unsolicited proposal aims to achieve a flight test of an in-space interceptor around mid-decade at a cost of €225 million. Such a system would “wisely complement the U.S. Phased Adaptive Approach in terms of interception capability,†according to Astrium spokeswoman Astrid Emerit, who adds that the French armaments agency is reviewing the Exoguard proposal.
In the meantime, Emerit says the high-level requirements definition called for under the recently awarded NATO contract is to be conducted independently of national contributions to the expanded missile defense architecture. However, “the next steps will give an opportunity to incorporate the systems provided by the nations—early warning, sensors and interceptors—into the NATO architecture and under NATO command and control,†she says.
Gen. Mark Welsh, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, acknowledges the difficulties that NATO faces in sorting out burden-sharing for the missile defense mission.
“The cost of this terrifies the countries,†he tells Aviation Week.
Welsh suggests that NATO countries adopt a more holistic approach to supporting the mission, such as considering common funding and purchases, contributing medical forces in the event of an attack, or providing decontamination expertise following a chemical or biological event.
“There are lots of things they can do if they would look at things with a little bit broader scope than they have,†says Welsh. “Many of the nations can contribute in ways, for example, in offensive operations. Many have capabilities that would allow us to go in and strike a missile site before it launches an attack, if NATO ever made that decision.â€
In the meantime, he says, the alliance needs to stay focused on setting up a command-and-control system rather than worrying about sensors and weapons.
“We are at step zero right now trying to build this,†he declares, adding that the alliance is awaiting approval to deploy an interim operational capability in May that would facilitate data exchanges between the disparate command-and-control systems operated by NATO and the U.S.
“The first step is connectivity, we still have to prove that,†he maintains. “To me, the idea is to prove you can do command and control, get a clear commitment to move forward on expansion of the capability, and then worry about the sensors and then the weapons. Without the sensors, the weapons don’t matter.â€
An actual flight test pitting a German Patriot terminal defense battery against a short-range missile target is scheduled for November, according to Welsh. During the trial in the eastern Mediterranean, a U.S. Aegis cruiser will provide target tracking.
Raytheon, meanwhile, is still fighting to win a foothold for its Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) in Europe. The company continues its push to persuade continental navies to embrace the SM-3 Block 1B for missile defense roles, and says it has largely validated the dual-mode data link that would be key to the concept.
The data link would feature both S-and X-band capability—the former to support the Aegis radar system used by the U.S. and others, and the latter for the Smart-L/APAR (active phased array radar) combination used, for instance, by the Dutch navy. Testing has gone beyond the brassboard stage in the 18 months of company-funded work, says Wes Kremer, Raytheon vice president for air and missile defense systems. Another 6-8 months of engineering activity would be needed, largely to reduce the size of the data link to what is needed for missile integration. All the waveforms that the data link has to support have been validated, says Kremer.
Raytheon’s current goal is centered on gaining the backing of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.
On the industry side, Thales in the Netherlands would play a key role in integrating the missile with the radar system, says Kremer. The Dutch also could be instrumental if a missile-pooling concept being proposed for European navies take off.
The SM-3 Block 1B recently flew its first intercept test but failed to hit the target. Kremer says the review group has just begun the data analysis and large amounts of telemetry are available.
Separately, ThalesRaytheonSystems says it has completed factory system tests of NATO’s Air Command and Control System (ACCS), which eventually is to grow to have a BMD role. Development of ACCS suffered large delays owing to software development problems, but company officials say the baseline capability is now ready for trials at NATO’s Test and Validation Facility and at national sites.
Europe will never match the U.S.’s passion for missile defense; but step-by-step, Washington’s NATO partners are moving to build up capacities that could augment and expand the shield the Pentagon is creating.
Progress will be slow and incremental, though, and—in terms of budget expenditure—will remain a mere fraction of what the U.S. commits to the mission area.
Nevertheless, there is clear momentum in Europe to do more, even if the main motivator is industrial base considerations: France wants to ensure that its missile sector does not lose out to U.S. rivals in providing interceptors to European and other forces, and the Netherlands wants to sustain advanced naval radar capacities.
In the NATO context, budgets are less important than symbolic steps, and this is underscored by the members’ recent move to award a €2.5 million ($3.4 million) contract to an industry team led by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), which will define the first elements of a plan that will enlarge the theater missile defense system to cover NATO territory and populations in Europe. Last year, NATO decided that it wanted to protect territory instead of just deployed forces. It was a long political battle, so this study effort—no matter how paltry the funding—has significant implications for the alliance’s future.
Work under the year-long effort is to be performed at the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency in The Hague, and “the results will then be taken forward for implementation in the NATO command-and-control network to broaden the capabilities of the NATO commander well beyond those demonstrated recently in missile defense testing between the U.S. and NATO elements last month,†the organization said in announcing the contract.
Alessandro Pera, manager for the Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (ALTBMD) program—the command, control and communications backbone for the alliance’s missile shield—says that under the new contract award, “we will work as a team with our industry and national partners, in close consultation with both the NATO military and relevant NATO committees, to ensure we get the job done.â€
The NATO contract follows a November 2010 decision at the Lisbon summit to provide the alliance with an additional layer of capability to protect Europe.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands, which has had a longtime interest in a missile shield, is pressing ahead to build up its own capacities. The Dutch defense ministry plans to expand the capabilities of the Thales Smart-L radar on Dutch frigates to take on BMD roles. The program’s value is estimated at €100-250 million, including logistics support and spares.
Other European navies using the sensor may follow the Dutch lead.
Dutch Defense Minister Hans Hillen notes that the Smart-L effort would help address the BMD sensor shortage within the NATO alliance. Citing NATO’s decision last year to take a more expansive approach to BMD, Hillen says Smart-L could give the ALTBMD command-and-control backbone the required long-range target-detection information. The sensor also could provide accurate launch-point detection analysis to help identify where a threat originates.
The Netherlands has already carried out a sensor trial for the expanded role in cooperation with the U.S. Navy. The move does not include the purchase of Raytheon Standard Missile SM-3 interceptors.
Both hardware and software modifications to the combat management system are needed. All four De Zeven Provincien-class frigates would be modified to ensure that two can be deployed, even as one is in maintenance and the fourth is being readied for operations.
Thales is due to complete a series of studies to prepare for the acquisition of the upgrade in the third quarter of 2012. The goal is to have the first frigates ready for operations in 2017. All four should be upgraded by the end of that year.
Although the Netherlands is leading the program, other Smart-L users, including the German navy and Denmark, have been monitoring the effort. France also has shown interest in the system, Hillen said in a letter to legislators.
France also wants to upgrade its Aster 30 interceptor to give it a basic BMD capability, although a formal contract has not been awarded.
In addition, Astrium Space Transportation, the prime contractor for France’s missile defense program, has already proposed a plan to validate the underlying technology for a €1 billion missile defense system dubbed Exoguard. The unsolicited proposal aims to achieve a flight test of an in-space interceptor around mid-decade at a cost of €225 million. Such a system would “wisely complement the U.S. Phased Adaptive Approach in terms of interception capability,†according to Astrium spokeswoman Astrid Emerit, who adds that the French armaments agency is reviewing the Exoguard proposal.
In the meantime, Emerit says the high-level requirements definition called for under the recently awarded NATO contract is to be conducted independently of national contributions to the expanded missile defense architecture. However, “the next steps will give an opportunity to incorporate the systems provided by the nations—early warning, sensors and interceptors—into the NATO architecture and under NATO command and control,†she says.
Gen. Mark Welsh, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, acknowledges the difficulties that NATO faces in sorting out burden-sharing for the missile defense mission.
“The cost of this terrifies the countries,†he tells Aviation Week.
Welsh suggests that NATO countries adopt a more holistic approach to supporting the mission, such as considering common funding and purchases, contributing medical forces in the event of an attack, or providing decontamination expertise following a chemical or biological event.
“There are lots of things they can do if they would look at things with a little bit broader scope than they have,†says Welsh. “Many of the nations can contribute in ways, for example, in offensive operations. Many have capabilities that would allow us to go in and strike a missile site before it launches an attack, if NATO ever made that decision.â€
In the meantime, he says, the alliance needs to stay focused on setting up a command-and-control system rather than worrying about sensors and weapons.
“We are at step zero right now trying to build this,†he declares, adding that the alliance is awaiting approval to deploy an interim operational capability in May that would facilitate data exchanges between the disparate command-and-control systems operated by NATO and the U.S.
“The first step is connectivity, we still have to prove that,†he maintains. “To me, the idea is to prove you can do command and control, get a clear commitment to move forward on expansion of the capability, and then worry about the sensors and then the weapons. Without the sensors, the weapons don’t matter.â€
An actual flight test pitting a German Patriot terminal defense battery against a short-range missile target is scheduled for November, according to Welsh. During the trial in the eastern Mediterranean, a U.S. Aegis cruiser will provide target tracking.
Raytheon, meanwhile, is still fighting to win a foothold for its Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) in Europe. The company continues its push to persuade continental navies to embrace the SM-3 Block 1B for missile defense roles, and says it has largely validated the dual-mode data link that would be key to the concept.
The data link would feature both S-and X-band capability—the former to support the Aegis radar system used by the U.S. and others, and the latter for the Smart-L/APAR (active phased array radar) combination used, for instance, by the Dutch navy. Testing has gone beyond the brassboard stage in the 18 months of company-funded work, says Wes Kremer, Raytheon vice president for air and missile defense systems. Another 6-8 months of engineering activity would be needed, largely to reduce the size of the data link to what is needed for missile integration. All the waveforms that the data link has to support have been validated, says Kremer.
Raytheon’s current goal is centered on gaining the backing of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.
On the industry side, Thales in the Netherlands would play a key role in integrating the missile with the radar system, says Kremer. The Dutch also could be instrumental if a missile-pooling concept being proposed for European navies take off.
The SM-3 Block 1B recently flew its first intercept test but failed to hit the target. Kremer says the review group has just begun the data analysis and large amounts of telemetry are available.
Separately, ThalesRaytheonSystems says it has completed factory system tests of NATO’s Air Command and Control System (ACCS), which eventually is to grow to have a BMD role. Development of ACCS suffered large delays owing to software development problems, but company officials say the baseline capability is now ready for trials at NATO’s Test and Validation Facility and at national sites.
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