A new United States Government Accountability Office study finds that the Missile Defense Agency tasked with protecting the country and its international interests from missile attacks has not met its annual goals for hardware delivery and testing, leaving it with "less capability than planned."
"In 2022, MDA continued to deliver interceptors and radar upgrades to operational commanders, including those that were expected to be delivered in prior years, but it did not meet its annual goals," the report said. "As a result, the warfighter has less fielded capability than planned."
According to the report, "the Missile Defense Agency is charged with defending the United States, its deployed forces, and regional allies from missile attacks."
It "executes this mission through a layered system of capabilities, known as the Missile Defense System," consisting of different "elements" that can identify missile launches, track flights, and give information to interception systems to destroy incoming missiles.
"Our prior reporting on missile defense acquisitions has shown that MDA has faced persistent technical challenges and schedule pressures fielding missile defense capabilities necessary to keep pace with evolving missile threats and meet its annual acquisition goals," the report said. "Since 2002, the agency has had to cancel a number of critical efforts due to cost and technical challenges — a trend [the] Department of Defense indicated must not continue into the agency’s third decade of operations given the importance of these systems."
Since being established in 2002, the MDA received more than $194 billion from the DOD, including $10.4 billion in 2022 alone, to equip operational commanders with the elements needed for the layered system to operate effectively.
The report said, however, that adversaries like China, North Korea, and Iran, are "investing substantially" in their own missile capabilities and are "making significant advances."
As those threats continue to grow, the MDA continues falling short on hardware deliveries resulting with a backlog of orders, and not completing planned system testing to ensure capabilities, the report said.
"MDA did not meet its annual delivery goals for fiscal year 2022, which is consistent with its performance in prior years," the report said. "MDA partially met its delivery goals for its four types of interceptors in fiscal year 2022, and it delivered assets that were not delivered in prior years as it had planned. MDA also partially met its sensor delivery goals, although it delayed operational acceptance of two radars until at least fiscal year 2023."
When it came to testing, MDA again fell short of its planned goal of 25 tests across the flight, ground, and cyber, disciplines, conducting just 11 total tests, the report said.
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