The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced the award of three contracts to support concept definition and program planning for the Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IIB program. The selected companies will work with MDA to define and assess viable and affordable missile configurations, conduct trade studies and develop an executable development plan. The contracts were procured through competition announced on the Federal Bussiness Opportunities website. Four proposals were received.
In September 2009, the President announced a Phased Adaptive Approach (PAA) to developing and deploying missile defenses. The SM-3 Block IIB is key for the United States to advance missile defense with greater cost-effectiveness in Phase Four of the PAA by providing a highly-deployable interceptor missile that will destroy threat missiles early in their flight. This early intercept capability greatly reduces the burden on the current missile defense architecture which destroys threat missiles later in their flight.
Phase Four will be complete by 2020, and will provide an early intercept capability against medium, intermediate, and Intercontinental ballistic missiles. In concert with the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) capability now deployed in Alaska and California for homeland defense, the Phase Four PAA architecture with the high-velocity, land-based SM-3 Block IIB interceptor missile and enhanced command and control and sensor network will provide an effective defensive capability for both regional and homeland defense by allowing multiple interceptors opportunities to destroy threat missiles of all ranges in the region from which they were launched.
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