Q&A: Rear Admiral Alan B. Hicks
Evolving Aegis into a Maritime
Missile Defense Capability
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Rear Admiral Alan B. Hicks
Program Director
Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense
Missile Defense Agency
Rear Admiral Alan B. Hicks is the program director, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), the sea-based element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) under development by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). He also serves as commander, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, a Naval Sea Systems Command Field Activity.
Hicks graduated from the University of Louisville in 1976 with a degree in international studies and economics, and was commissioned through the NROTC. His initial assignment was in USS Schenectady serving as navigator and gunnery officer. He was then assigned to USS Francis Marion in 1978 as navigator and main propulsion assistant. Subsequent sea duty includes tours aboard USS Valdez and as operations officer aboard both USS Caron and USS Kidd. In 1987, Hicks returned to USS Caron as executive officer.
In 1994, Hicks assumed command of USS Hayler, and also commanded USS Cape St. George from August 1999 to September 2001. During this period, the ship completed a Mediterranean Sea/Indian Ocean deployment as air defense commander of the Eisenhower Battle Group, and participated in the cooperative engagement capability operational evaluation and battle operations. Hicks’ shore and staff duty includes tours as aide/administrative assistant to the Navy inspector general, operations officer of commander Destroyer Squadron Ten, flag secretary to commander Second Fleet, and operations officer of commander Cruiser/Destroyer Group Eight/Eisenhower Battle Group. Additionally, he has served on the Joint Requirements Oversight Council of the joint staff and on several occasions with the Chief of Naval Operations staff, including tours as the BMC3/joint C4I requirements officer for Theater Air Warfare Directorate and as the director for network systems/integration.
His first flag assignment was as deputy commander, warfare systems engineering to Naval Sea Systems Command. Most recently, Hicks served as deputy director for combat systems and weapons in the Surface Warfare Directorate.
Hicks was interviewed in August by MSMF Editor Marty Kauchak.
Q: Please explain the mission of the program director, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense as it supports the Ballistic Missile Defense System.
A: The Aegis BMD program is the maritime component to the BMDS. We have leveraged existing Aegis weapons systems that were first fielded on USS Ticonderoga in the early 1980s and the Standard Missile [SM] variant, which we have had for even longer than that. We have evolved them to the capability needed on warships to obtain a sea-based missile defense capability. That capability can either be a sensor to other elements of the BMDS, like Patriot [Advanced Capability], Terminal High Altitude Area Defense [THAAD] or Ground-based Midcourse Defense [GMD], or we can engage the hostile missile. Our task is to deliver to the Navy and the warfighter—the combatant commander—this BMD capability that leverages the maritime domain and gives them a very sustainable capability.
Q: What are the Aegis BMD element’s top three priorities for fiscal year 2009?
A: I would call these our three areas of focus: near-term efforts, flight testing and future capabilities.
First is getting the near-term sea-based terminal capability into an operational configuration with SM-3, ship self-defense and air defense. We’re certifying the computer programs and performing ship installations as fast as we can. We are finishing up the last of our shipboard installations, which will take us up to 18 ships [three USS Ticonderoga and 15 USS Arleigh Burke] by the end of this year. And we are also working with the Navy to get those BMD-modified SM-2 Block IV missiles delivered into our inventory.
Our second focus area is obviously continuation of flight testing, whether it is our own or flight testing of another element such as GMD or THAAD. Another critical piece of that flight testing is the next Japan Flight Test Mission, which will be late this fall with the Japanese ship Chokai. That’s very important to us.
The third focus area to tell you about is our next BMD weapons system, and the missile paired up with that weapons system upgrade is SM-3 Block IB. Our Aegis weapon system upgrade is BMD 4.0.1. We’re coming up on our critical design reviews across the board for both the missile and weapons system upgrades this fall and winter. We start installation of BMD 4.0.1 onboard USS Lake Erie, our test bed, in October. That is a huge effort for the program. We need that next upgrade as part of our spiral development effort to keep pace with the evolving threat. That, along with some of our milestones in development with the Japanese 21-inch [diameter variant of the SM-3 missile] program and the open architecture of the Aegis modernization program, are the far-term capabilities of our program.
Q: Can you summarize the Aegis BMD program’s requested funding profile for the budget out-years?
A: We average approximately $1 billion per year. Traditionally, Congress has been a very strong supporter of sea-based missile defense, and we do get some support from Congress with additional funding. They are very focused on us getting this capacity out there with missiles and also helping us with money for risk reduction for future program upgrades. We continue to enjoy good discussions with the Hill on the president’s fiscal year 2009 budget and we have a very positive dialogue with them. For the future out-year budget, we are looking at ways to increase the number of ships and missiles.
Q: How is Aegis BMD evolving to provide a sea-based terminal capability?
A: Right now, we have defense in depth—whether it’s an SM-3 supporting a second midcourse shot on some target, or an SM-3 having a first shot, followed by a THAAD shot or a Patriot shot. For defense in depth, we need engagement coordination to optimize Aegis BMD to be able to do that.
There are some scenarios that we have that we need to have access to THAAD for an upper-tier shot and Patriot for terminal engagements. Sea-based terminal is an important warfighter requirement for those times. What we are looking at—where we see sea-based terminal—is as an important requirement. We are looking at options to take us down the path to acquire a far-term sea-based sea terminal capability that goes beyond what we have funded as a near-term, gap-filler capability with the SM-2 Block IV.
Q: Please summarize how Aegis BMD is being integrated with Army THAAD system and other evolving BMDS elements.
A: We are pretty proud of our record of working with the other elements. From implementation of limited defensive operations with GMD, Aegis worked very hard under Rear Admiral Paige’s great leadership to get the LRS&T capability in place with GMD to support the presidential direction. So from early on, Aegis BMD has had great success integrating with GMD, and that also involves command and control, battle management and communications so that relationship can take place.
We have also greatly leveraged the THAAD system located at the Pacific Missile Test Range. As we and THAAD conduct flight tests, we have leveraged each other to do risk reduction, integration and interoperability as the systems exchange track data and cue each other. The THAAD flight tests also include an AN/TPY-2 [X-band radar], which is a forward-based radar like the one we have in Japan. They make it available to also support some of our flight tests. During FTX-03, an Aegis BMD ship worked with other BMDS elements, the TPY-2 and GMD, to track the long range target.
Q: How will the Navy’s ship modernization and ship construction plans impact deployment of Aegis BMD?
A: We are in a good dialogue with Navy as it evolves and establishes requirements for the next generation cruiser [CG-X]. And so we are working through basic requirements that they have for the ship in regards to ballistic missile defense.
With regards to modernization, we are very closely aligned with the Navy for obvious reasons. If we do this right, there is no reason we cannot touch most of the Aegis fleet efficiently and effectively to allow BMD upgrades on those ships. Both former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Mullins and current CNO Admiral Gary Roughhead are strongly committed to this.
Our goal is to merge baselines so that the fleet variant merges with our variant. We need to do that with an open architecture concept. We have a plan that has been agreed upon by [MDA Director Lieutenant] General Obering and the Navy leadership to do that. Our goal is to merge baselines in the 2013 timeframe. A significant portion of the modernization has been funded by the Navy as far as procurement of equipment and installation on those ships going through upgrade beginning with the first destroyer in 2012. We certify the merged baseline in 2013.
Q: What do you see as the Aegis BMD element’s top three leading technology challenges your office needs help to solve?
A: I would characterize the first one as involving our radars, both sea based and land based, how we deal with future discrimination issues, and how we net those sensors effectively together to meet our warfighting needs.
The second issue I would highlight is our work with Japan on the 21-inch SM-3 Block IIA missile. We are obviously designing a much bigger missile and have to deal with weight issues in the current launcher. So our interest is to develop lightweight composites for rocket motor casing, lightweight composites for missile canisters for use in the [MK 41] vertical launchers. This is very important to us. Weight is a big deal.
A third issue is insensitive munitions safety, which has always been a big challenge for us. It is important as far as safety and transportability to continue to focus technology efforts to handle insensitive munitions. This is an area that we are focused on and that industry is taking a hard look at. Let me add, there’s always a requirement for a technology that produces advanced infrared seekers. There’s a lot of work going on in that area today. If I were looking for an area where we need extra investment, that’s what I would focus on.
Q: What improvements are envisioned to permit Aegis BMD to evolve into a mid-course ICBM killer?
A: We believe with the SM-3 Block IIA we’ll have a pretty robust capability not just for short and medium range, but also intermediate range ballistic missiles out to 3,500 kilometers to 5,000 kilometers. We will have a capability against some of the longer range, hostile ballistic missiles with that SM-3 Block IIA.
So one of the issues for us is to go back to the weight issue on the Block IIA, and, as we evolve the Block IIA missile after it is built in 2015, ask, “What is after the Block IIA?” and how do we continue to work to get more capability out of the 21-inch missile due to efficiencies in either weight or energetics.
But again, eventually, we are going to have to answer the question of the next missile that is going to be sea-based beyond the Block IIA. And the opportunity for the next missile will be with the new cruiser. With the CG [X] we need to change the paradigm of how we look at launchers on a surface ship. We need to look at what the Navy is doing in the Trident submarine program and maybe look for opportunities with what they know about their launcher systems, exchange data, and look for opportunities where we can get more flexibility in a shipboard context to get maybe a bigger missile with more kinetic reach.
Q: What significant BMD co-development efforts with U.S. allies do you expect during fiscal year 2009?
A: We have to finish all four of the Japanese ships [Kongo-class destroyers upgraded to Aegis BMD capability with SM-3 Block IA missiles], and we are doing one a year.
Beyond that, we are engaged with several of our allies and are working with them and exchanging technical information. We are also talking with allies that have radars that are good enough to do that mission and looking at what they can do from a search, track and engagement capability. I would use the example of when the Dutch joined us for a flight test in December 2007 [Royal Netherlands Navy ship HMNLS Trump in FTM-11]. We worked with the Dutch Navy to modify that radar [signal multi-beam acquisition radar for tracking] and they tracked our target during FTM-11. And now we are involved in further discussion to determine what it would take to further enhance the radar and also what does it take to allow them to fire for an engagement capability.
We are also having a technical interchange with the government of Australia and we are going to start discussions with the government of South Korea. And we’ll continue working with our allies as we get the opportunity.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: I get asked a lot: “Why does the program have such success?” I would say a lot of it is the great work by a lot of people throughout our infrastructure. The engineering infrastructure that we have built up here at Dahlgren [Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center] and Port Hueneme [NSWC Division], Calif., for the government team combines with the technical design agent function that we have for technical development up at John Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory [APL] and at MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
That interfaces with the government and its technical peers in industry—Raytheon [Tucson, Ariz.] and Lockheed Martin [Moorestown, N.J.]—and also supports that infrastructure that we have built up over the last 30 to 50 years building the Standard Missile for Aegis. That infrastructure we have built up on the government side, and at Tuscon at the manufacturing site and Moorestown on the systems engineering development side, that all provides us with what I consider to be a world-class infrastructure for supporting the capability to move on today.
That body, not just the facilities, but the engineers behind it, and that level of knowledge, gives us the ability to evolve Standard Missile, to evolve the Aegis weapon system to meet the threat with the flexibility inherent in the full design and to take those to levels we never really envisioned when we first did this. Had we not had that infrastructure in place, had we not had the teams at Moorestown, Tucson, APL and Dahlgren, we would not have been able to accomplish the satellite shootdown in the time allocated. ♦