Annual Missile Defense Costs to Jump by 2016
In a new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that looks at military spending between now and 2024, total investment costs for missile defense are expected to hit their highest point in 2016: $15 billion ($18 billion, if cost risk is included). This peak in spending is three years later than the CBO had anticipated when doing its projection in October 2005, due to delays in some programs.
The cost projection considers various elements of the overall ballistic missile defense (BMD) system separately. For the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, it predicts that deployment of the expanded GMD system would be completed in 2013, with procurement of spare interceptors to continue to 2017, at a total cost of $18 billion over the 2007-17 period.
For the Aegis BMD system, CBO predicts it will begin buying new versions of its Standard Missile (SM)-3 interceptor in 2013, and reach $1 billion per year over the period 2015 to 2019. For the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS), the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) would begin to field a five-satellite constellation in 2014, with a second beginning in 2017 that would increase the constellation to a total of nine satellites.
CBO projects a total procurement cost (including launch costs) for the two spirals of $7 billion. Assuming a six-year life span, replacement of the original satellites would start in 2020.
