Pentagon cancels US$1 billion ‘kill vehicle’ meant to shoot down missiles from Iran or North Korea

The Pentagon cancelled a Boeing contract for a “kill vehicle” envisioned to shoot down missiles from North Korea or Iran, the latest setback to a next-generation system that has struggled to prove its effectiveness.

The termination of the Redesigned Kill Vehicle comes as the maker of the interceptor’s warhead, Raytheon, continued to struggle with design and manufacturing problems that increased costs, the Missile Defence Agency said in a statement Wednesday. Boeing had received a US$1 billion contract in May 2017 for the project.

“Ending the programme was the responsible thing to do,” Michael Griffin, the under secretary of defence for research and engineering said in the statement. “After exercising due diligence, we decided the path we’re going down wouldn’t be fruitful, so we’re not going down that path any more.”

The Defence Department plans start a competition for a new contract to design a next-generation interceptor, according to the statement.

The interceptor had been billed as a major improvement for a US$180 billion network of ground- and sea-based missile interceptors, sensors and communications links intended to defend the US from a limited North Korean or Iranian attack by dispatching a missile to crash into and destroy it.

While the Defence Department has claimed progress in missile defence tests against a dummy target, arms control experts have repeatedly said the Pentagon has conducted only tightly controlled tests in which the target warhead can easily be picked out from decoys.