Welcome

Decades ago, President Ronald Reagan began a major technological investment that was seen as vital to America's security. With the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), researchers from private industry, universities, and Federal laboratories began the planning and creation of our country's first Ballistic Missile Defense System.

In 2004, SDIO's eventual successor, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), saw an important milestone reached: the installation of 20 interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska. As further deployments are planned, the success of the future Ballistic Missile Defense System increasingly relies on new technology.

MDA needs advanced technology and concepts because it is these innovations that enable the system to protect against ballistic missile threats. The MDA Technology Applications (TA) program fully supports this mission by ensuring that MDA-funded technology reaches maturity and, therefore, can be inserted into defense systems. Without this vital support, maintaining superior defenses would be much more difficult.

As director for MDA technology transfer, I'm pleased to welcome you to the TA program's Web site here on MDALINK. This program has many facets, all of which are aligned with MDA's technology development and transfer goals. It is through this program that MDA not only builds better missile defenses, but also enables technologies to "spin off" into commercial and industrial markets - making the United States more globally competitive while creating new jobs and improving the quality of life for Americans.

Since the founding days of SDIO, the TA program has found innovative ways to support the mission. Among these are an assembly of business professionals that imprints its extensive corporate knowledge onto MDA-funded researchers pursuing commercialization and a unique tracking system that keeps data on many technologies developed from SDIO days to present. A recent innovation has been a highly specialized Web site, www.mdatechnology.net, which offers a comprehensive collection of MDA technology transfer information, including publications.

Supporting MDA's technology investments is the mission of the TA program. To learn more about our program's services and publications, I urge you to explore the pages highlighted in the navigation bar on the left. If you have any questions about these services or publications, please feel free to contact us.

Paul Koskey
Director, Technology Applications