The idea was floated as the Obama administration weighs Bush-era plans to put 10 ground-based interceptors, or GBIs, in underground silos in Poland, paired with a radar site in the Czech Republic, as a hedge against Iran's growing ballistic-missile clout. The review is to be wrapped up by the end of this year.
Boeing, which manages the hub of a layered U.S. anti-missile shield deployed in 2004, is eyeing a 47,500-pound interceptor that could be flown to NATO bases as needed on Boeing-built C-17 cargo planes, erected quickly on a 60-foot trailer stand and taken home when judged safe to do so.
"If a fixed site is going to be just too hard to get implemented politically or otherwise, we didn't want people to think that the only way you needed to use a GBI was in a fixed silo," Greg Hyslop, Boeing's vice president and general manager for missile defense, told Reuters.
A scale model showed a two-stage interceptor designed to be globally deployable within 24 hours at designated launch sites that would provide coverage for the United States and Europe.
Boeing had just started briefing the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency on the proposal, Hyslop said. The project could be completed by 2015 at probably less cost than had been planned for the silo-based interceptors, he said.
The Government Accountability Office reported earlier this month that military construction costs for the interceptor and radar sites could top $1 billion. U.S. intelligence officials say that by 2015 Iran will have a long-range missile capability. The Polish and Czech sites are scheduled to be ready by then.
(EurActiv with Reuters)
