Mar 3 2003
From The Space Library
Missile Defense Agency (MDA) officials announced that the flight test in December 2002 of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system had been unsuccessful, because a faulty computer-chip connection in the Raytheon exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV) had prevented the EKV from separating from its booster during flight. Although the MDA had not recovered the EKV, engineers had determined the problem with the chip's connection using laboratory simulations, concluding that no significant underlying problem with the EKV technology had caused the failure. The December test, the third unsuccessful GMD intercept attempt, had been the second attempt in which the EKV had failed to separate from the booster. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Ronald T. Kadish, Director of the MDA, remarked that quality-control problems had likely caused the test failure and announced the formation of an office to improve the MDA's performance. (Marc Selinger, “Test Failure of GMD System Blamed on Problem with Computer Chip,” Aerospace Daily, 5 March 2003.
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