Relocatable In-Flight Interceptor Communications System Data Terminal #2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

摘要

BACKGROUND: The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is responsible for developing, testing, and deploying the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). The BMDS is designed to intercept threat missiles during all phases of their flight: boost, midcourse, and terminal Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) is an element of the midcourse defense, during which the Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) intercept and destroy long-range missiles during the ballistic (midcourse) phase of their flight before their reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. According to May 2003 National Policy on Ba11istic Missile Defense Fact Sheet, the President directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to field a set of initial missile defense capabilities beginning in 2004. In support of this directive, MDA/GMD established operational GBI launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base (AFB), California, as part of an initial defense of the United States from a limited ballistic missile attack. This included a Relocatable In-Flight Interceptor Communications System Data Terminal (RIOT), which was constructed on North Vandenberg AFB in 2005. The RIDT provides a communications link between the GMD Fire Control (GFC) components of the GMD element and the GBI during system testing and during an actual missile attack against the United States, its friends, or allies. These activities were previously analyzed in the GMD Extended Test Range Final Environmental Impact Statement (ETR EIS), July 2003, and the GMD Initial Defensive Operations Capability at Vandenberg Air Force Base Environmental Assessment (IDOC EA), August 2003, respectively.