Citing persistent problems in test flights, the Pentagon's top weapons tester has recommended that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency consider redesigning the kill vehicle that sits atop the interceptors deployed to protect the United States against ballistic missile attacks. The Raytheon-built Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), designed to separate from its booster rocket and destroy incoming missile warheads by force of impact, is the business end of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, which serves as the primary U.S territorial shield. In his 2013 annual report, which was released to Congress Jan. 27, Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department's director of operational test and evaluation, called into question the design of the EKV. "The flight test failures that have occurred during the past three years raise questions regarding the robustness of the EKV's design," he wrote.
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