U.S. increases budget to block N. Korea`s ICBM

The U.S. has decided to increase budget for its missile defense, including the expense to deploy Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) to prepare itself for North Korea’s possible attack on the U.S. mainland.

A report entitled the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (H.R. 4435)" was released by the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces under the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on Monday. The Missile Defense Administration under the U.S. Defense Department requested the Congress to approve 75 million U.S. dollars required to deploy LRDRs to cope with the threat of North Korea’s ballistic missiles, according to the report. After earmarking 30 million dollars as initial budget for the project, MDA is taking the latest move to expand the project in earnest.

LRDR is equipment that identifies in the interim phase and tracks when North Korea fires intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). The radar systemically shares the necessary functions with the Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX-1) exclusively for detecting ballistic missiles. The U.S. is aiming at actual deployment of LRDR in 2020.

According to the report, MDA earmarked this year 1.3 billion dollars in next year’s budget to cope with possible missile attacks by North Korea and Iran, including budget to deploy LRDR.

The missile defense (MD) budget will be primarily used to implement a plan to deploy 14 additional ground-based interceptors (GBI) at Fort Greely Base in Alaska and other locations. The U.S. has already deployed 30 GBIs at military bases in Alaska and California to defend the U.S. mainland from ICBM attacks by North Korea and Iran.

MDA will conduct this summer a GBI intercept test, in which Capability Enhancement Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (CE-II EKV) known as “Kill Vehicle” will be mounted,” and adjust its plans to deploy and operate GBIs accordingly.