"We know we have not fully tested the system, but it's our view that it is better to have a system deployed that is not fully tested than to not have a system at all," said James Albaugh, president of Boeing's defense business.
Another beneficiary of the interceptor project is Raytheon, whose sprawling electronic systems unit in El Segundo built many of the sensors, radar and targeting equipment used in the missile system.
In December, Century City-based Northrop Grumman Corp. won a $4.5-billion, eight-year contract to develop a rocket that can destroy ballistic missiles right after takeoff. About 1,000 Northrop engineers locally are working on various missile-defense projects, such as early-warning satellites to detect missile launches.
"We see missile defense as a significant area of growth for us," Northrop Chief Executive Ronald D. Sugar said.
Another Northrop effort involves building lasers to shoot down airborne missiles immediately after takeoff. Northrop's lasers are being tested using an Air Force 747 jumbo jet at Edwards Air Force Base. If all goes well, the Pentagon hopes to put the lasers into use by 2008.
Yet the first batch of interceptors promises to be deployed far quicker. Designed to destroy in mid-flight enemy warheads heading for the U.S., they are expected to be fully ready for use in a few months.
A key component of the interceptor is a table-top-sized device, dubbed the "exoatmospheric kill vehicle," that is released in space. This vehicle uses its own guidance system to avoid decoys and countermeasures and slam into an enemy warhead. The 4-foot-long device caries no explosives and destroys its target by the massive force of a collision, at five times the speed of a bullet.
The kill vehicle was developed by Raytheon's El Segundo engineers. It carries optics to navigate, antennas to receive data from ground radar, a small computer and a refrigeration unit to form krypton ice cubes for cooling sensors.
Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon also is constructing a complex X-band radar system to track enemy missiles and then guide the interceptor to its target. About the size of a house, the radar system will be placed on an oil-rig-like platform off the coast of Alaska sometime in the fall of 2005.
Still, critics contend that the vast missile-defense program has mainly been a boondoggle for defense firms, with many cost overruns and delays. They peg the cost of the entire system since the Reagan administration at more than $160 billion.
