Congress is increasing land-based missile procurement dollars as part of its $573 billion fiscal 2016 defense spending package released Wednesday.
"The bill reflects investments in critical missile procurement programs underfunded by the services," according to a Senate report on the bill.
The Army is getting $100 million more on top of its $415 million request to buy Lockheed Martin-made Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhanced (PAC-3 MSE) missiles originally listed as part of the service's unfunded requirements sent to Capitol Hill earlier this year.
The unfunded requirements list is essentially a wish list of things a service would need in that fiscal year but couldn't afford to include in its budget request and is normally requested by Congress.
The PAC-3 MSE missile is the latest variant of the interceptor used in the Patriot air-and-missile defense system.
The Army is also getting an additional $91 million to buy Lockheed Martin and Raytheon-made Javelin missiles. The spending bill appropriates an extra $50 million to buy more for the Marine Corps' arsenal as well.
The Marine Corps is also getting $70 million more for Tube-Launched, Optically Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles manufactured by Raytheon.
Marines practice employing hunter-killer techniques with multiple weapons platforms during sustainment training on Aug. 21.
Photo Credit: Sgt. Paris Capers/US Marine Corps
The Army's research and development account for its future Army Missile Defense Systems Integration efforts also saw an increase in the spending bill of $19 million on top of a $10.3 million request partly to work on a prototype design for field trials and operational test and evaluation efforts.
And the service’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense System received an additional $8 million — in a research and development program already budgeted at $214 million — in order to conduct cybersecurity research.
The Army’s current air-and-missile defense system — Raytheon’s Patriot — was cut by $16 million in order to focus only on funding for "near-term urgent improvements," the bill notes. The Patriot account has taken hits in the spending bill for several years because the Army has been unable to provide detailed estimates of the cost to modernize the system over the long term that are satisfactory to decision-makers on Capitol Hill. And t The Army is trying to determine its path ahead with its future air-and-missile defense system intended ultimately to replace Patriot.
The spending bill also provided $20 million more in funding to develop a multi-object kill vehicle as part of the Missile Defense Agency's Common Kill Vehicle program to design a kill vehicle that can take out multiple warheads with a single interceptor.
Developing a new kill vehicle for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System (GMDS) interceptors is one of the agency's top priorities. The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) is a critical component of the GMD system that is designed to protect the homeland from possible ballistic missile threats from North Korea and Iran. The EKV has struggled in tests in the past but has seen some recent successes.
Congress also appropriated $10 million in additional funding to support competitive development of next-generation divert and attitude control system (DACS) technology that is a "critical" component needed to make precise trajectory adjustments to position kill vehicles for intercepts.
Email: jjudson@defensenews.com
Twitter: @JenJudson
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
