Missile Defense Agency

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency will host a public meeting Wednesday to talk about a new radar facility the agency is building at Clear Air Force Station.

The Pentagon agency that runs the nation’s missile-defense system halted work earlier this year on a $375 million radar facility near Clear, largely because of COVID-19 concerns. A congressional report says the decision will likely delay the Missile Defense Agency’s fielding of the advanced radar facility by about a year.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is inviting public feedback on two documents related to a testing program the agency plans to conduct this fall on a new radar facility at Clear Air Force Station.

The Pentagon's decision last week to cancel a billion-dollar contract held by Boeing Co., due to problems with the "kill vehicle" payload on interceptor missiles like those at Fort Greely, won't affect the expansion project under way at the Army post's missile-defense base.

Fort Greely has declared five so-called "shelter in place" alerts over the past two weeks, apparently in response to recent North Korean missile test launches. The alerts announced over loudspeakers advise people on the fort to stay indoors and take precautions to protect themselves from the toxic exhaust of interceptor missiles that would be launched from Greely in an attempt to knock down U.S.-bound enemy ICBMs. And the announcements have rattled some who live on post.

A prominent critic of U.S. missile defense agrees that a test of the system two weeks ago was a success. And that’s why Philip Coyle is more concerned than ever that the system is fueling a new arms race with both Russia and China.

Despite the apparent easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, soldiers operating the missile-defense base at Fort Greely and elsewhere remain ready to respond to an attack by North Korea or other hostile regimes against the United States. U.S. military officials told reporters on a rare tour of the high-security facility at Greely last week that is the hub of the nation’s defense against missile attack that remains operational 24/7.

A delegation of politicians affiliated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met with researchers and officials during a stopover Thursday at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s Science and Technology Committee came to UAF during a fact-finding visit to Alaska to learn about the university’s research on the impact of climate change in the Arctic.

Work on an $80 million structure at Fort Greely’s missile-defense base is expected to begin by midsummer. But it’ll be mostly design work; military officials say major construction on the project probably won’t get going until next summer.