UPDATE 1-Pentagon eyes doubling its missile interceptors

(adds space-based missile defenses, paras 10-11)

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - The chief U.S. weapons buyer told Congress on Thursday he was aiming to ramp up deployment of anti-missile systems beyond those projected in President George W. Bush's latest budget request.

"Like many members of this committee, I believe we need to field additional ballistic missile defense assets in the near-term," John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, told a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee.

He referred by name to systems like Lockheed Martin Corp's Aegis ship-board Ballistic Missile defense and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD).

These could provide combat commanders plus U.S. friends and allies "a significant defensive capability in just a few years," Young said in prepared remarks to the committee's strategic forces panel.

THAAD is designed to defend against short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Made up of a fire control and communications system, interceptors, launchers and a radar post, it is the only anti-missile weapon designed to knock out targets both inside the atmosphere and in space.

The Aegis ballistic missile defense system feeds into a layered shield that also includes what will be, by year end, a total of 30 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California managed by Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, Air Force Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, told reporters the Pentagon tentatively was planning to "roughly double" output of both THAAD and Standard Missile-3 interceptors, built by Raytheon Co for the Aegis system, in the five years or so starting from fiscal 2010.