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Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD)

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system will be the United States’ first operational missile defense program capable of protecting all 50 states. GMD will detect and track long-range ballistic missiles in their boost phase, and destroy them during their midcourse phase, i.e. while the missiles are outside the atmosphere and at their highest trajectory. In 2002, National Missile Defense (NMD) was changed to Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), to differentiate it from other missile defense programs, such as space-based and sea-based intercept programs, and defense targeting the boost phase and the reentry phase.

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