3 May 2011
United States Ballistic Missile Defense Site at Deveselu Air Base in Romania
US Department of State Fact Sheet
Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance

http://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/162446.htm

The EPAA will provide protection of NATO European territories and populations, and augment protection of the United States, against the increasing threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles from the Middle East. At the November 2010 NATO Summit, the Alliance welcomed the EPAA as a U.S. national contribution to the NATO missile defense capability.

Technical Aspects of the United States Ballistic Missile Defense System in Romania

• The site will consist of a radar deckhouse and associated Aegis command, control, and communications suite. Separately, it will house a number of launch modules containing SM-3 interceptors.
   
• Personnel can live and work safely near the Aegis radar system. The United States has safely operated the Aegis Radar Test site in Moorestown, New Jersey for over 30 years without any danger to people or the environment.
   
• SM-3 interceptors are for defensive purposes only and have no offensive capability. They carry no explosive warheads of any type, and rely on their kinetic energy to collide with and destroy incoming enemy ballistic missile warheads.
   
• The Aegis Ashore configuration of the ballistic missile defense system will be thoroughly tested at a specialized test center at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Hawaii starting in 2014.

Proposed Characteristics of the United States Ballistic Missile Defense System in Romania

• The U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense site is approximately 430 acres (175 hectares) and is located within the existing Romanian Air Base at Deveselu.
   
• An estimated 200 military, government civilians, and support contractors will be required to operate the U.S. facility at the site.

Potential Debris from Intercept

• SM-3 Interceptors based in Romania will not be used for flight tests, and will be launched only in defense against an actual attack.
   
• The risk of damage or injury from an intercept and debris are small and pose little threat to people and property. The alternative (allowing a threat warhead to impact its target) likely would result in far more severe consequences.

Proven Defensive Capabilities

• The Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense system incorporates decades of reliable and effective operations of the Aegis ship-based system into its design and test program.
   
• The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System has been proven effective through repeated testing. Since 2002, the system has been successful in 21 of 25 flight tests with the SM-3 interceptor.

3 May 2011
Love at First Site
MDAA Alert
Riki Ellison
Chairman & Founder
Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

Parlimentary Palace, Bucharest, Romania

Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher and Romanian President Traian Basescu announced in Bucharest today that Romania and the Deveselu Air Base near Caracal, 125 miles southwest of Bucharest, will be the site of the first deployed United States Aegis Ashore missile defense system. This system is scheduled to be deployed by 2015 and will play a pivotal role in defending Europe and deterring Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, from using or threatening to use ballistic missiles against European populations, NATO and U.S. military forward operating bases.

This encouraging announcement comes on the heels of the successful Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) missile test two weeks ago. That test, Flight Test Standard Missile-15 (FTM-15), proved the initial concept for the protection of Europe using the Aegis system with the forward-based AN/TPY-2 X-band radar to track, discriminate, launch and intercept a medium-range ballistic missile.

The Aegis Ashore system is a land based version of the Aegis BMD system deployed today on 21 U.S. Navy Cruisers and Destroyers. The system includes the current shipboard variants housed in several buildings and areas consisting of the vertical launch tubes, AN/SPY-1 S-band Radar, Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) missiles, power and cooling requirements and the Aegis Fire Control and Battle Management System.

The Aegis Ashore deployed in Romania will have the new 5.0 processor and the SM-3 Block IB missiles, which have not yet been certified or fully developed but are scheduled to be by 2015.  In 2018 the Romanian Aegis Ashore will also have the capability to launch the SM-3 Block IIA missile being co-developed with Japan. By 2020 a projected SM-3 Block IIB, that is currently on the drawing board, could also be added to the Aegis Ashore site in Romania. The U.S. State Department estimates that 200 military and government civilians will be manning the system that will be on a 430 acre site at the Deveselu Air Base.

The Romanian based Aegis Ashore system will work in coordination with deployed U.S. Aegis BMD ships in the Mediterranean as well as a forward-based AN/TPY-2 radar placed in Turkey or Bulgaria by 2011 and the Battle Management Command at the Air and Space Operations Center (AOC) at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany. Other missile defense assets such as the Defense Support Program (DSP), Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) Satellites, future Precision Tracking Space Sensor (PTSS) satellites as well as the airborne infrared (ABIR) concept will be integrated into the AOC at Ramstein to ultimately provide the best tracking, discrimination and shooting solution amongst all the missile defense assets.  

The first semi- prototype of the Aegis Ashore system is located in a cornfield in Morristown, New Jersey and operated by the U.S. Navy. The first complete and fully tested Aegis Ashore system that the Romanian system will duplicate is to be deployed at the Pacific Range Missile Facility (PMRF) in Barking Sands, Kauai. It is scheduled to be in place by 2013 and will complete the testing and certification of the system by the 2015 deployment in Romania.

Complete funding by the Department of Defense and the United States Congress for the system in Romania is still a concern and must be addressed. Current funding takes the development of the system to 2012 and additional funding needs to be attained from outside of the already over whelmed missile defense budget. Tactical and strategic concerns about force protection requirements needed to defend the Aegis Ashore site in Romania must also be addressed adequately, including whether to deploy a Patriot Battery from the 357^th ADA or consider placing SM-2 missiles in the inventory. The restraints of physics on this system and its missiles still challenge its technical capability to intercept inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM). Because of this a hedging strategy to defeat an Iranian ICBM threat by 2015 needs to be securely in place.

The selection of the site in Romania remains a key milestone on the path towards President Obama's Phased Adaptive Approach to protect Europe and our war fighters stationed there.