House lawmaker calls for independent study on extending Minuteman III, delaying GBSD

A House lawmaker is proposing an independent study be held on extending the life of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile program to 2050 and delaying its replacement.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) submitted an amendment to the House Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill that would direct the defense secretary to submit the assessment to Congress no later than 210 days after the legislation's enactment.

If the amendment is included in the final version of the defense policy bill, 10% of the funds authorized to be appropriated to the Office of the Secretary of Defense could be withheld until the study is submitted to Congress.

In addition to comparing the costs through 2050 of extending the Minuteman III program and delaying its replacement, the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, the study would include an analysis of options to incorporate technologies into the legacy system that could increase resilience against adversary missile defenses.

Another analysis would assess the pros and cons of integrating "sensors and nondestructive testing methods and technologies to reduce destructive testing requirements and increase the service life and number of Minuteman III missiles through 2050," the amendment states.

The independent study would further analyze and validate methods used to estimate the operational service life of Minuteman II and Minuteman III motors and consider the pros and cons of alternative methods for conducting such forecasts.

These other approaches may include those based on "fundamental physical and chemical processes and nondestructive measurements of individual motor properties," according to the amendment.

Under Blumenauer's proposal, the defense secretary would use a federally funded research and development center to complete the study. The center would then submit a report to the secretary containing the study no later than 180 days after the bill is signed into law.

Further, the study should be unclassified but may include a classified annex, according to Blumenauer.