High (Intercept) Hopes

The Missile Defense Agency really wants to be able to shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile target before the end of this fiscal year. As the agency's fiscal year 2013 budget justification book released today states:

Our highest priority is to successfully return the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program to flight testing with a successful intercept in FY 2012. Additionally, we will procure additional ground-based interceptors (GBIs) for enhanced GMD testing for a total of 57. We will focus on GBI enhancements for reliability and aging testing.

The Pentagon's FY-13 defense-spending request includes $9.7 billion for BMD programs, "including $7.8 billion" for MDA, according to the budget book.