Tonight's Missile Defense Exercise is "Secret"

A missile defense exercise this evening will be classified as Secret, according to an email sent to government personnel with the Missile Defense Agency and obtained by POGO, shutting off real-time media access to the general results, despite the fact that previous tests have been open to the media.  However, missile defense personnel will be able to monitor the voice communications and the target flyout if they RSVP.  (UPDATE: Down in the comments, Rick Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, disagrees that media access will be curtailed.)

According to a Missile Defense Agency (MDA) budget document (pdf), the exercise this evening is to help prepare for a flight test involving the Sea-Based X-band (SBX) radar platform slated for later this year.  Tonight's Field Training Exercise 02 (FTX-02) is to simulate an intercept of a live target to collect data and "provide system test risk reduction for" the actual interceptor test which will utilize the SBX and, in effect, test its radar abilities.  The SBX is the primary tracking instrument for the United States' Ground-based Missile Defense (GMD) system, and is meant to track warheads as they cross over the Northern Pacific and Arctic Oceans towards the U.S. West Coast.

The SBX operates in a largely unforgiving environment and its capabilities are vulnerable to a host of natural and man-made threats. 

The exercise tonight is to take place sometime between 9:30pm and 1:30am U.S. eastern time.

There have been a series of embarrassing failures in the missile defense program over the last several years, where interceptors have failed to intercept their targets, even failing to launch.

In the early years of the Bush Administration, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld enacted several measures which increased secrecy at the Missile Defense Agency and decreased accountability.

Taken in context, the secrecy surrounding the exercise tonight is part and parcel of MDA's desire to keep its troubles, if they occur, under wraps.  And if the simulated interception is a success, just wait for the full court press tomorrow.

-- Nick Schwellenbach

UPDATE: Here's the generic response from MDA's press guy Rick Lehner to any media or public inquiries into today's exercise:

FTX-02 is an important exercise involving missile defense sensors, especially the new sea-based X-band radar (SBX).  SBX will participate in the exercise by obtaining tracking data from a long-range missile launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif.  The data will be used to exercise the SBX in a real-time environment as a part of its continuing development and testing program, tracking the target missile and processing target information that will be passed on through the command, control, battle management and  communications element.  The exercise will assist in the refinement and processing of radar information that will be used to support two upcoming intercept tests, with the SBX performing as the primary engagement radar in the second test, which is scheduled to take place later this year.

Comments

[Rick Lehner]

The missile launch at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. and the sensor exercise supporting it will not "shut off real-time access to the general results." Media will certainly be able to view the missile launch from Vandenberg as they are able to do for any missile launch from the base. Actually, people can see launches from Vandenberg from hundreds of miles away. Since this is a sensor exercise involving the new sea-based X-band radar plus sea-based radars aboard two Navy ships, we will have a good indication of initial radar performance a few hours after the test and this will certainly be released to the public within the bounds of normal classification procedures. It will take at least several weeks to analyze and evaluate the huge amount of data that will be captured by test equipment and the command and control network.