Pentagon ends new radar effort meant for Guam missile defense
'On January 7, 2025, the Deputy Secretary of Defense [Kathleen Hicks] directed the [Missile Defense Agency] to cease development of one of the elements, the AN/TPY-6 radar, but to retain the currently fielded panel as an experimental asset with potential to develop for operational use within the [Guam Defense System] in the future,' the report states.
While Hicks' decision came at the end of her tenure under the Biden administration, GAO notes the changes are not binding on the new administration.
The Pentagon's plan to develop an elaborate air-and-missile defense architecture is beginning to take shape and will be pieced together over the coming years in order to protect Guam from increasingly complex threats emerging in China and North Korea.
MDA had shipped its first AN/TPY-6 panel on a boat headed to the island last summer, planning to use it to track a threat launched from a C-17 plane in a first flight test of current capability coming together for the defense of Guam at the end of 2024.
The new radar uses technology from MDA's Long-Range Discrimination Radar positioned in Alaska at Clear Space Force Base, which will have its own test next year ahead of declaring operational capability.
The Guam Defense System will also rely on a variety of systems still in development, mostly within the Army. The Navy will provide technology and capability from its Aegis weapons system. The land service plans to bring to Guam currently fielded capabilities, like the Patriot system and its Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, that connects any sensor and shooter together on the battlefield, as well as Mid-Range Capability missile launchers, which were first fielded at the end of 2023.
The Army will also incorporate Patriot's radar replacement, the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, which was just approved for production, and its Indirect Fire Protection Capability launchers, which are reaching the end of the prototyping phase.
With the termination of AN/TPY-6, for now, Hicks directed the MDA prioritize remaining Aegis Guam systems development funds 'toward delivering minimum viable Aegis C2 [command and control] and datalink capabilities to enable Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) engagements off remote track from AN/TPY-2 and LTAMDS over the JTMC [Joint Track Management Capability] bridge,' according to GAO's report.
The Pentagon's memo required upgrading the JTMC bridge to address all missile threats from China and achieve a Joint Tactical Integrated Fire Control capability — the future joint track architecture for Guam — 'for coordinated battle management, combat identification and electronic protection,' the report states. Those upgrades should be completed no later than 2029.
The memo also directed MDA to accelerate key command-and-control integration work, including getting the Army-operated Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system to work within IBCS.
Guam is home to a permanent THAAD battery called Task Force Talon, which serves as the critical component for defending the island against ballistic missile threats.
Additionally, the Army and MDA 'shall integrate AN/TPY-2 measurement data into IBCS no later than 2030 and achieve full integration by 2033,' the report details.
The MDA has long used AN/TPY-2 radars to track ballistic missiles, but Raytheon just delivered a new version to MDA with Gallium Nitride, or GaN, which gives it the ability to track more complex threats at greater ranges like hypersonic weapons.
The first new radar with GaN will go to the Army's eight THAAD battery. The radars can be used in a forward-based mode, providing cuing data to systems like the Navy's Aegis ballistic missile defense system or the Army's Patriot. It serves as the primary radar for THAAD.
The Army's new LTAMDS radar, also developed by Raytheon, has GaN technology as well.
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Roger Wicker and Jim Risch, last week introduced a bill that would create a US Treasury fund that allies could deposit money into to backfill US military equipment donated to Ukraine. But another source familiar with the matter said the Pentagon is more likely to let that $4 billion in funding authority expire. The Colby memo, which Hegseth approved, remains the department's policy, the sources said. It categorizes US stockpiles into 'red,' 'yellow' and 'green' categories, the sources added. The red and yellow categories include weapons the Pentagon assesses to be in short supply, and now require explicit signoff by Hegseth before they are sent anywhere else. Interceptor missiles for Patriot air defense systems, for example, are in the red category, the sources said. The weapons package that was paused by Hegseth last month included dozens of interceptors, but Trump ordered Hegseth to keep those flowing after finding out about the pause, CNN has reported. 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Alexus Grynkewich—the current head of both US European Command and NATO's allied military operations—would determine whether the US has enough in its stockpiles to sell before putting the list to European partners to potentially purchase, the sources said. NATO allies are working toward a starting point of $10 billion to invest in the NATO account for weapons purchases for Ukraine, two of the sources said. Rutte announced on Tuesday that allies had already committed over $1 billion to arming Ukraine. For some more urgent capabilities, some European countries have agreed to send their own supply directly to Ukraine and wait to be backfilled by the US. The US struck a deal with Germany last week, for example, in which Germany will supply two of its US-made Patriot systems to Ukraine and buy new ones from the US, to be delivered as soon as they come off the production line. 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