The Defense Department plans to ask Congress for $9.16 billion to fund missile defense programs for fiscal year 2014 as part of a $526.6 billion defense budget request scheduled for release Wednesday.
If approved, the Pentagon would receive $550 million less in missile defense funding than the $9.71 billion for fiscal 2013, representing an approximate 5.6 percent decrease, according to Bloomberg News.
Tony Capaccio writes the Pentagon wants $1 billion in fiscal 2014 funds for a Boeing-managed interceptor system and $1.5 billion for Aegis sea-based systems made by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
Funding for the Lockheed-built Patriot Advanced Capability-3 program would stay at fiscal 2013 funding levels of $945 million.
According to Capaccio, the Pentagon indicated last month that it plans to spend $1 billion by 2017 to deploy new ground-based interceptors in Alaska built by Orbital Sciences.
Those systems would be assigned to defend intercontinental ballistic missiles from Iran or North Korea, according to the report.
