US ABM Systems

Austin wrote:Get Ready, Russia and Iran: America Wants to Kill Nuclear Missiles in Space

Duh I thought SM-3 II-A missiles were already deployed and they are yet to test it.

From the article. Does this mean that the new missile will not fit in the Mk-41 launcher? Is this a bigger diameter missile than a S-500 missile?

The new SM-3IIA missile builds upon a smaller existing operational variant of the missile called the SM-3IB, Raytheon officials said.

“This is an extended capability of what we have for the SM-3 1B. Because of the larger missile this is a 21-inch air frame. we have a larger area of defended area coverage. we've also brought in some capability advancements into our kinetic warhead so now we have a higher sensitivity - so that is just better seeker,” Amy Cohen, Raytheon SM-3 Director, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

Look at the quality of the building the photo shows the missile in. Another reason for the very high cost of US military procurement.

The National interest is one of the largest of Washington's propaganda mouthpieces. All I can suggest to the manufacturers is: get you existing product functioning properly first. But then again, they will make plenty of money over this.

S-500 isn't even out yet and we don't know it's parameters besides rumors. We know THAAD and sM-3 through their tests and results are spotty against basic ballistic missile tech like Scud B and variants. Might be fine against a three stage Scud B type missile but that's about it. American marketing department is a strong one though.

And some people think THAAD-ER and S-500 have same capabilities. THAAD is a poor man's S-300.


@John: https://www.russiadefence.net/t5164p25-united-states-national-missile-defense#134441

Rethink the SM-3 Block 2B

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has further undermined the rationale for developing a new missile interceptor for installation in Poland and Romania. The Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block 2B is intended primarily to protect U.S. territory against Iranian long-range missiles lobbed over Europe. But the congressional watchdog agency, citing internal Defense Department analyses, casts doubt on the interceptor’s effectiveness in that role.

According to a GAO report released Feb. 11, SM-3 Block 2B interceptors launched from Romania would have difficulty engaging Iranian ICBMs launched at the United States because of unspecified “flight path” issues. Poland is a better option, but only if the interceptors can be launched early enough to hit targets in their boost phase, an engagement scenario that presents a whole new set of challenges. The best basing option is in the North Sea, but making the SM-3 Block 2B ship compatible could add significantly to its cost, the GAO said.

The report echoes one of the findings of a U.S. National Research Council missile defense study released last September. That report said the final phase of U.S. President Barack Obama’s so-called Phased Adaptive Approach to European defense, which features SM-3 Block 2B deployment, would do little to protect the eastern United States from Iranian missiles.

The SM-3 Block 2B would be the newest variant of the Raytheon-built SM-3 Block 1A, now operational aboard U.S. ships as a defense against medium-range missiles. But it would have significantly more capability than two other upgrades in the works, including the Block 2A being co-developed by Raytheon and Japan. Moreover, the Block 2B is the object of a three-way competition among Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — all three were awarded design contracts worth over $40 million each in 2011 — suggesting it is much more than an incremental upgrade. Among the options being considered, for example, are liquid-fueled propulsion components, a complicating factor for sea basing.

Congress has doubts about the Phased Adaptive Approach in general and the SM-3 Block 2B in particular: Lawmakers provided only a fraction of what the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) requested for the program in 2012. Mr. Obama’s congressional critics often miss the mark in their eagerness to slam his missile defense strategy. But they’re on firmer ground in saying the Phased Adaptive Approach, at least with respect to U.S. territorial defense, was hastily approved.

According to the GAO, the MDA did not conduct a formal analysis of alternatives before initiating SM-3 Block 2B development — the reviews that exposed its limitations were conducted only after the fact. While noting that the MDA was not required to conduct the formal analysis due to certain “acquisition flexibilities,” the report said such assessments typically yield wiser procurement decisions.

The flexibilities accorded the MDA, presumably so it can field capabilities quickly, should themselves be reviewed. Fast-track acquisition programs have their place under certain circumstances, but as often as not they run into problems that lead to self-defeating delays and cost overruns.

The SM-3 Block 2B development program, meanwhile, has been dialed back due to funding constraints. The doubts raised by the National Research Council and now the GAO, coupled with the anemic budgets the Pentagon is likely to face in the upcoming years — with or without the looming sequester cuts — make it difficult to imagine there being room for the program in the Pentagon’s forthcoming budget request for 2014.

How the U.S. Missile Defense Agency burned $231 million on a program that never should have left the drawing board




Proponents of the Precision Tracking Space System were not shy about touting its supposed benefits.

The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said PTSS represented an “unprecedented capability” to protect America and its allies against a nuclear attack by the likes of North Korea and Iran.

A key congressional supporter described it as “a necessity for our country.”

The planned network of nine to 12 satellites, orbiting high above the equator, would detect missile launches and track warheads in flight with great precision, the proponents said.

It would be able to tell apart real missiles from decoys — an elusive capability known as “discrimination.” It would help guide U.S. rocket-interceptors to destroy incoming warheads. And it would do all this at a fraction of the cost of alternative approaches.

Based on those promises, the Obama administration and Congress poured more than $230 million into design and engineering work on PTSS starting in 2009. Four years later, the government quietly killed the program before a single satellite was launched.

The Missile Defense Agency said PTSS fell victim to budget constraints. In fact, the program was spiked after outside experts determined that the entire concept was hopelessly flawed and the claims made by its advocates were erroneous. It was the latest in a string of expensive failures for the missile agency.

The Los Angeles Times examined hundreds of pages of congressional testimony and other government records and interviewed leading defense scientists and others familiar with PTSS.

Among the findings:

a)In their equatorial orbit, the satellites would have been blind to warheads flying over the Arctic — one of the likely paths for missiles launched from Iran or North Korea.

b)With at most 12 satellites, the system could not have provided continuous tracking of missiles across the Northern Hemisphere, as promised. That would require at least twice as many satellites.

c)PTSS could not have reliably distinguished warheads from decoys and harmless debris. The satellites’ sensors were not powerful enough.

d)The Missile Defense Agency’s cost estimate — $10 billion over 20 years — was way off. PTSS would have cost at least $24 billion over that time period, according to an independent assessment done for the Pentagon and Congress.

e)Even if the system lived up to its billing, it would have been largely redundant. Existing satellites and radars can do much of what PTSS was supposed to do.

“It’s an example of what can go wrong in defense procurement: Huge amounts of money just pissed away on things that should never have advanced beyond a study,” said David K. Barton, a physicist and radar engineer who served on a National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed U.S. missile-defense programs, including PTSS.

Philip E. Coyle III, former director of operational testing and evaluation for the Pentagon, said the PTSS fiasco could have been avoided if the concept had been properly vetted at the beginning.

“You could have done it on a napkin,” he said. “All you had to do was put pencil to paper.”

The satellites use infrared sensors to detect the fiery plume from missile launches. But they cannot follow a warhead once it has separated from its launch rocket and left the Earth’s atmosphere; the heat signature is too faint.

That is where radars come in. They can track the path of warheads after separation. Their reach, however, is limited by the Earth’s curvature, leaving gaps in radar coverage.

PTSS was presented as an answer to these challenges, and as a way to safeguard the United States and strengthen “regional defense” — the protection of allies and American forces overseas.

The system’s advocates included top officials in the Missile Defense Agency and in the office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as lobbyists for Northrop Grumman Corp., which was assisting with the engineering work.

These proponents said PTSS, from its vantage in space, would be able to track the complete trajectories of enemy missiles from launch to detonation, or “birth to death.”

Its advanced infrared sensors, they said, would pick up both launches and the extremely faint, long-wave radiation given off by warheads after separation.

Those same sensors were said to be capable of “discrimination,” even at vast distances — differentiating missiles from decoys, chunks of spent rocket fuel and other detritus.

With PTSS standing watch, the advocates said, the military would not have to build and install more radars, an expensive and tricky proposition, because some would have to be based on foreign soil.

In the spring of 2010, Lt. Gen. Patrick J. O’Reilly, then director of the Missile Defense Agency, went to Capitol Hill to secure support for the program.

O’Reilly, trained as a physicist, did not automatically plump for new projects. Previously, he had challenged missile-defense initiatives that he considered ill-conceived, angering members of Congress whose states or districts benefited from the spending.

But O’Reilly voiced no reservations about PTSS. The system would be able to “track hundreds of missiles being launched over their entire flight,” and its “very simple” engineering approach would keep costs down, he told Congress.

The agency was working with the Air Force, the Naval Research Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

Northrop Grumman and other industry giants — Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Co. — would later be hired to do preliminary engineering work on PTSS. This positioned them to compete for the system’s prime manufacturing contract, worth hundreds and possibly thousands of jobs.

In remarks to congressional panels in the spring of 2011, O’Reilly said PTSS would help provide “advanced discrimination’’ for the defense of the United States and its allies.

He also emphasized the system’s affordability, telling a Senate panel on May 25, 2011, that “PTSS will provide three to six times the simultaneous tracking ability at a small fraction of the high operations costs” of new land or sea-based radars.

Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee, usually reliable supporters of missile defense spending, were unconvinced. They questioned whether the agency could deliver PTSS on schedule and whether the money might be better spent on other programs.

They recommended against including any funds for PTSS in that year’s defense authorization bill.

O’Reilly and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) pushed back.

“I believe that eliminating funding for the PTSS is the wrong course of action,” Ruppersberger told fellow members of a House Armed Services subcommittee on May 5, 2011.

The congressman did not have to spell out for colleagues the importance of PTSS to his home state of Maryland, where the Johns Hopkins lab was leading the design and engineering work.

Ruppersberger introduced a new rationale for PTSS, saying the system would improve the nation’s “space situational awareness” and counter China’s ambitions in space.

“We must support funding for the research and development of technologies that will enable us to protect the security of our country,” Ruppersberger said, “and allow our research labs, universities and private companies to do what they do best — innovate.”

Northrop Grumman lobbyists joined the drive to secure funding, according to interviews and lobbying disclosures filed with Congress. (A spokeswoman said the company would have no comment for this article.)

Supporters of PTSS carried the day. Democrats, who controlled the Senate, argued that the program held promise, and a Senate-House conference committee restored about half the $160 million that the Obama administration had requested for the 2012 fiscal year.

The first satellite was to be launched as early as 2015.

Missile Defense Agency officials told the panel that the system would do “great things,” Montague recalled. It would be capable of “birth to death tracking” and discrimination.

The latter capability was especially important, because the nation’s limited arsenal of ground-based interceptors — 4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base and 26 at Ft. Greely — would be exhausted quickly if they were mistakenly fired at decoys.

After hearing the enthusiastic descriptions of PTSS, Montague had a question:

“Tell us what the orbit configurations are.”

Informed that the satellites would orbit 932 miles above the equator, the panelists were immediately concerned.

Earth’s curvature limits the line of sight of satellites as well as radar — so PTSS would have difficulty tracking missiles in northerly latitudes. Iran and North Korea lie 35 degrees to 40 degrees north of the equator.

Northbound missiles launched from those countries would vanish as they approached the Arctic region, the panelists determined.

“The threat would disappear over the horizon,” Montague said in an interview. “There was this hole in the doughnut over the Polar region. You wouldn’t see them there.”

To track missiles continuously throughout the Northern Hemisphere, at least 24 satellites would be needed, with some in orbits well north of the equator.

The panelists further concluded that, given their equatorial position and the limits of their infrared sensors, the PTSS satellites could not be relied on to discriminate. They would be too far away from their targets to distinguish warheads from decoys.

And PTSS’ ability to detect launches was superfluous. Existing satellites could do that.

Panel members also concluded, based on Eisman’s analysis, that the missile agency had drastically understated the cost of the system.

A memo the agency sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee estimated the cost at $10 billion for the first 20 years. But that did not include the full expense of launching the satellites or operating the system, the independent experts determined.

They put the actual cost at $24 billion to $28 billion, depending on whether nine or 12 satellites were deployed.

For a much lower pricetag, about $9 billion over 20 years, a handful of powerful new radars on land could close the gaps in missile tracking and perform discrimination, the panelists found.

“The committee was absolutely in favor of missile defense,” recalled co-chairman Walter B. Slocombe, a former undersecretary of defense. “But there’s no point in building a system that doesn’t work.”

By the fall of 2011, the academy experts had completed a classified draft of their report. Before sharing it with congressional leaders and Pentagon brass, Montague briefed O’Reilly and a dozen of his subordinates in the director’s conference room at Missile Defense Agency headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Montague said he told O’Reilly: “We cannot see the rationale for PTSS. We believe it has a life-cycle cost of $24 billion to $28 billion. … And it will not do anything new or unique.’’

“Those aren’t our numbers,” an agency engineer countered.

“That’s right,” Montague said he replied. “We believe it should be canceled.”

A draft of the panel’s 282-page report, “Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense,” was circulated to policymakers before the next round of congressional budget hearings in the spring of 2012.

One section dealt with PTSS, and the conclusions were unsparing:

a) “PTSS appears to be a solution looking for a problem.”
b) “The rationale for PTSS was never explained to the committee in any coherent way.”
c) The system would be “very expensive compared to other alternatives.”

In a letter to congressional leaders, Montague and Slocombe said: “The committee finds no valid justification for pursuing PTSS, and recommends terminating all effort on it.”

On the crucial issue of discrimination, the statement conceded that PTSS would have had only a “limited” ability to avoid being fooled by decoys.

As to why the system was designed with relatively few satellites, all in the same orbit, the agency veered from its previous descriptions of PTSS and said it “was tailored for regional defense rather than homeland defense.”

That is starkly at odds with how senior Pentagon officials had described PTSS to Congress.

The agency’s own “fact sheet” on PTSS, posted on its website, says the system was intended to “support homeland, regional and theater missile defense.”

The fact sheet goes on to say that PTSS succumbed to “department-wide fiscal pressure.” It makes no mention of the National Academy panel’s findings.

Roberts, who left the Defense Department in 2013, said in an interview that PTSS would have been an “important investment to make for the long term.” It might have proved its worth “10, 20, 30 years from now,” he said.

Asked if there were lessons to be learned, Roberts replied: “Nothing comes to mind.”

The Pentagon Will Test-Fire its New Larger SM-3 IIA Interceptor Missile in Space

The Missile Defense Agency and Raytheon plan to fire a new SM-3 missile variant into space to destroy an approaching enemy missile target - as a way to develop a new interceptor better able to detect and destroy ballistic missile threats approaching the earth’s atmosphere from space.

The new missile, called the SM-3IIA, is slated to fire from a land-based missile defense site planned by the Pentagon for Poland by 2018, a Missile Defense Agency spokesman, told Scout Warrior in a statement.

SM-3 missiles, first deployed on Navy ships, are exo-atmospheric interceptor missiles designed to destroy short and intermediate range incoming enemy ballistic missiles in above the earth’s atmosphere. With the weapon, threats are destroyed in space during what’s described as the mid-course phase of flight.

The planned Poland deployment is a key part of what the Pentagon calls the Aegis Ashore program, an effort to leverage the ship-based Aegis Radar for land-fired missile defense technology. As of last year, Aegis Ashore locations are already operational in Romania as part of the Obama administration’s European Phased Adaptive Approach program.

The concept with the program is to engineer a land-based missile defense envelope, by using already successful and operational Aegis Radar and SM-3 technology, to better protect the European continent from potential ballistic missile threats.

While not specifically identified for particular countries such as Iran, Russia or other potentially hostile Middle Eastern Countries, the sites are designed to protect Europe and NATO allies from the broadest possible range of missile threats to Europe. Land-based defensive intercept missiles in Romania and Poland, such as the SM-3 variants, could knock-out and destroy approaching missile threats aimed at European targets.

The SM-3 is a kinetic energy warhead able to travel more than 600 miles per hour; it carries no explosive but instead relies on the sheer force of impact and collision to destroy an enemy target.

The new SM-3IIA missile builds upon a smaller existing operational variant of the missile called the SM-3IB, Raytheon officials said.  

“This is an extended capability of what we have for the SM-3 1B.  Because of the larger missile this is a 21-inch air frame. we have a larger area of defended area coverage. we've also brought in some capability advancements into our kinetic warhead so now we have a higher sensitivity - so that is just better seeker,” Amy Cohen, Raytheon SM-3 Director, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

The SM-3IIA is still finishing up development and is slated for flight test in the second half of this year. The MDA and Raytheon test will assess the kinetic warhead and missile seeker in a space environment, Cohen explained.

An improved seeker can better see approaching targets from longer distances compared to the SM-3 1B, she added.

Some of these improvements engineered into the missile are described as “sensitivity increases” which use a larger focal plane array for detection and more computer processing power.

The SM-3 Block IIA has completed two very successful fly-out tests—with no target missile launched, Missile Defense Agency officials said.  

“The first intercept flight test is planned for second half of this year. We will be engaging against a medium range ballistic missile - the next flight test we have will get us to the point where we have the trajectory very solid that we are there to support EPAA phase III in Poland,” Cohen added.

In December of last year, Raytheon received a $543 million SM-3IIA production contract to build the missiles. Some of these missiles will be sent to Poland for the Aegis Ashore site planned for 2018, officials said.

Production of the missile involves a collaborative effort between the Raytheon in the U.S. and Japan.  Both Japan and Raytheon produce 50-percent of the missile which is then integrated by Raytheon.

Meanwhile, Raytheon and the MDA are also upgrading the existing SM-3IB missile with improved software such that it can better detect and destroy new threats, Kenyon Hiser, Raytheon’s SM-3 Block IIA program manager.

Some of the technologies designed for the SM-3IIA are being retrofitted onto the SM-3IB, he added.

max steel wrote:THAAD Extended Range

Holy f#ck, they're not even trying to hide it anymore, Scuds, Silo's and Delta-class subs, obvious message to Russia.

Lockheed Martin Harnesses Australian R&D for Next-Gen Radar

Lockheed Martin, in partnership with Australia’s Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group, is developing enhancements for the next generation of Over-the-Horizon Radar (OTHR) to detect and track small, fast-moving targets at extremely long ranges and at night.

The US defense giant has invested in the Australian Research and Development (R&D) Programme with a view to selling the capability in the international market place, including the United States. The defense-industry team announced the successful completion of Phase 1 of validation work on what is known as Project Coorong on June 8.

OTHRs typically operate at lower frequencies during night hours, due to a diminished ionosphere, and this significantly reduces the radar cross section of small targets, such as cruise missiles.

The work was initiated by a Royal Australian Air Force requirement to detect and track targets such as the next generation of hypersonic cruise missiles.

The R&D work is now validating years of modeling conducted by DST Group, but Gordon Frazer, acting chief of DST Group's Cyber and Electronic Warfare Division, said the project had to be placed in mothballs in order to concentrate on work to support the upgrade of Australia’s operational Jindalee Operational Radar Network.

However the project was revived following a strategic partnering alliance between DST Group and Lockheed Martin in 2014.

AlfaT8 wrote:

max steel wrote:THAAD Extended Range

Holy f#ck, they're not even trying to hide it anymore, Scuds, Silo's and Delta-class subs, obvious message to Russia.

Come on.
How are they supposed to get funding, with WW2 U-boats and V-2 rockets?
Remember this is the US MIC not the government itself.

AlfaT8 wrote:

max steel wrote:THAAD Extended Range

Holy f#ck, they're not even trying to hide it anymore, Scuds, Silo's and Delta-class subs, obvious message to Russia.

THAAD-ER has a speed of 2.85 Km/sec quoted. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13189/making-sense-of-ballistic-missile-defense-an-assessment-of-concepts

A sudden burst of reality from a guy who probably knows what he is talking about. Probably now a marked man.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The next US president should order a comprehensive evaluation of the capabilities of high-altitude missile-defense programs with a view to scraping them as useless, ex-US Chief of Naval Operations science advisor Theodore Postol told Sputnik. "The emphasis of the review should be to determine if these systems have any capability to discriminate between warheads and decoys," Postol, emeritus professor of science, technology and security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated on Monday.

Postol noted the review should be comprised of people who have actual technical expertise, rather than people who are political appointees and do not have the technical credentials to contribute to the scientific merit of the study. "The review would show, based on competent scientific review, that the current missile defense systems (that is, the Navy Aegis system, the ground-based missile defense system, and the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) will be incapable of dealing with the most simple decoys."

This finding is based in the fundamental physics of infrared phenomena that show improvements in sensors can never change the outcome of the conclusions, Postol pointed out. "This means that the United States is simply wasting its money on these systems."

If the next US administration commits itself to using fundamental science to determine whether or not taxpayer monies are properly being spent, the result will be the cancellation of these systems that are creating fundamental problems between the United States, Russia, and China, Postol added. "The bottom line is that these systems give us the worst of both worlds. They provide us with no reliable defense capabilities, and they are antagonizing and creating fear in Russia and China that is counterproductive and is ending all efforts at future arms reductions."

Postol recalled that that successive US administrations were investing scores of billions of dollars in missile defense systems that had no capabilities, but inspire fear. "The pursuit of these systems by the United States raises questions in the minds of potential adversaries about what the United States leadership believes it can do. Does it believe that it can attack Russia or China and use these missile defenses to defend against a ragged retaliation?"

Continued enormous US investment in systems that could not work was bound to make other nations fear that eventually they might have some level of effectiveness, Postol noted. "Contrary to popular belief, the pursuit of these missile-defense systems is much more than a waste of money. It is quickly foreclosing any future reductions in nuclear weapons, which are the greatest danger to the United States and the rest of the countries in the world."

The next US president should determine whether or not these systems can be expected to provide any reasonable defensive capability and scrap them if they do not, Postol concluded.

http://sputniknews.com/us/20160621/1041653374/us-missile-defense-systems.html

Strategic Capabilities of SM-3 Block IIA Interceptors (June 30, 2016)

Austin wrote:Strategic Capabilities of SM-3 Block IIA Interceptors (June 30, 2016)

That satellite destruction was made possible because the sat position was predetermined from where and when it will be passing by, rest Block II-A are for IRBMs (forget ICBMs) like Korean Mudsang etc. But the question is can they intercept Iskanders ?

Science group warns of shortcomings in U.S. missile defense

The U.S. missile defense system to counter attacks from rogue states like North Korea has no proven capability to protect the United States and is not on a credible path to achieve that goal, a science advocacy group said on Thursday.

The ground-based midcourse missile defense system, which has deployed 30 interceptors in Alaska and California, has been tested under highly scripted conditions only nine times since being deployed in 2004, and failed to destroy its target two-thirds of the time, the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a report.

"After nearly 15 years of effort to build the GMD homeland missile defense system, it still has no demonstrated real-world capability to defend the United States," said Laura Grego, a UCS physicist who co-authored the report.

Deficiencies in the program, which has cost $40 billion so far and is being expanded to include 44 interceptors by 2017, are due largely to a Bush administration decision to exempt the system from normal oversight and accountability, to rush it into service by 2004, Grego said in an interview.

"Instead of getting something out to the field that worked well or worked adequately, in fact this has been a disaster. It's done the opposite," she said.

The Obama administration's efforts to improve oversight while keeping the system outside the normal development and procurement process have contributed to the problems, she said.

"The lack of accountability has had and will have real lasting effects, especially for a system ... that's strategically important. It should be held to the highest standards, the highest rigor," she added.

The Missile Defense Agency said in a statement the rapid deployment requirement in the law that created the system was "a driving factor" in the delivery of a ground-based interceptor with "reliability challenges."

The agency said the problems had led to changes in the interceptor's design and a program to improve reliability, including use of more mature technologies. The MDA said it was seeking ways to reduce the risks of deploying equipment still under development.

The UCS report echoed criticisms the homeland missile defense system has faced from other quarters. A Pentagon assessment in 2015 found that flight testing of the system was still "insufficient to demonstrate that an operationally useful defense capability exists."

A February report by Congress's Government Accountability Office said the MDA was taking a "high-risk" approach by buying interceptors still under development for operational use.

Northrop Grumman has submitted a proposal to the US Air Force to modernize the United States’ intercontinental ballistic missile system.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201610181046434900-northrop-grumman-usaf-missile-system/

US expert says THAAD can’t distinguish between real and decoy warheads

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/764068.html

Found this interesting

US expert says THAAD can’t distinguish between real and decoy warheads

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/764068.html

Interesting concept to kill MIRV

Get Ready Russia, China, Iran and North Korea: America's Missile Defense Program Is Going 'Star Wars'

The Multi-Object Kill Vehicle can simultaneously destroy ICBMs and decoys with a single interceptor.

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency is in the early phases of engineering a next-generation “Star Wars”-type technology able to knock multiple incoming enemy targets out of space with a single interceptor, officials said.

The new system, called Multi-Object Kill Vehicle, or MOKV, is designed to release from a Ground Based Interceptor and destroy approaching Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs -- and also take out decoys traveling alongside the incoming missile threat.

“We will develop and test, by 2017, MOKV command and control strategies in both digital and hardware-in-the-loop venues that will prove we can manage the engagements of many kill vehicles on many targets from a single interceptor. We will also invest in the communication architectures and guidance technology that support this game-changing approach,” a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, told Scout Warrior a few months ago.

Decoys or countermeasures are missile-like structures, objects or technologies designed to throw off or confuse the targeting and guidance systems of an approaching interceptor in order to increase the probability that the actual missile can travel through to its target.

If the seeker or guidance systems of a “kill vehicle” technology on a Ground Base Interceptor, or GBI, cannot discern an actual nuclear-armed ICBM from a decoy – the dangerous missile is more likely to pass through and avoid being destroyed. MOKV is being developed to address this threat scenario.

The Missile Defense Agency has awarded MOKV development deals to Boeing, Lockheed and Raytheon as part of a risk-reduction phase able to move the technology forward, Lehner said.

Steve Nicholls, Director of Advanced Air & Missile Defense Systems for Raytheon, told Scout Warrior the MOKV is being developed to provide the MDA with “a key capability for its Ballistic Missile Defense System - to discriminate lethal objects from countermeasures and debris. The kill vehicle, launched from the ground-based interceptor extends the ground-based discrimination capability with onboard sensors and processing to ensure the real threat is eliminated.”

MOKV could well be described as a new technological step in the ongoing maturation of what was originally conceived of in the Reagan era as “Star Wars” – the idea of using an interceptor missile to knock out or destroy an incoming enemy nuclear missile in space. This concept was originally greeted with skepticism and hesitation as something that was not technologically feasible.

Not only has this technology come to fruition in many respects, but the capability continues to evolve with systems like MOKV. MOKV, to begin formal product development by 2022, is being engineered with a host of innovations to include new sensors, signal processors, communications technologies and robotic manufacturing automation for high-rate tactical weapons systems, Nicholls explained.

The trajectory of an enemy ICBM includes an initial “boost” phase where it launches from the surface up into space, a “midcourse” phase where it travels in space above the earth’s atmosphere and a “terminal” phase wherein it re-enters the earth’s atmosphere and descends to its target. MOKV is engineered to destroy threats in the “midcourse” phase while the missile is traveling through space.

An ability to destroy decoys as well as actual ICBMs is increasingly vital in today’s fast-changing technological landscape because potential adversaries continue to develop more sophisticated missiles, countermeasures and decoy systems designed to make it much harder for interceptor missile to distinguish a decoy from an actual missile.

As a result, a single intercept able to destroy multiple targets massively increases the likelihood that the incoming ICBM threat will actually be destroyed more quickly without needing to fire another Ground Based Interceptor.

Raytheon describes its developmental approach as one that hinges upon what’s called “open-architecture,” a strategy designed to engineer systems with the ability to easily embrace and integrate new technologies as they emerge. This strategy will allow the MOKV platform to better adjust to fast-changing threats, Nicholls said.

The MDA development plan includes the current concept definition phase, followed by risk reduction and proof of concept phases leading to a full development program, notionally beginning in fiscal year 2022, Nicholls explained.

“This highly advanced and highly technical kill vehicle takes a true dedication of time and expertise to properly mature. It is essential to leverage advancements from other members of the Raytheon kill vehicle family, including the Redesigned Kill Vehicle,” Nicholls said.

While the initial development of MOKV is aimed at configuring the “kill vehicle” for a GBI, there is early thinking about integrating the technology onto a Standard Missile-3, or SM-3, an interceptor missile also able to knock incoming ICBMs out of space.The SM-3 is also an exo-atmopheric "kill vehicle," meaning it can destroy short and intermediate range incoming targets; its "kill vehilce" has no explosives but rather uses kinetic energy to collide with and obliterate its target. The resulting impact is the equivalent to a 10-ton truck traveling at 600 mph, Raytheon statements said.

“Ultimately, these Multi-Object Kill Vehicles will revolutionize our missile defense architecture, substantially reducing the interceptor inventory required to defeat an evolving and more capable threat to the homeland,” an MDA official said.

Kris Osborn became the Managing Editor of Scout Warrior in August of 2015. His role with Scout.com includes managing content on the Scout Warrior site and generating independently sourced original material. Scout Warrior is aimed at providing engaging, substantial military-specific content covering a range of key areas such as weapons, emerging or next-generation technologies and issues of relevance to the military. Just prior to coming to Scout Warrior, Osborn served as an Associate Editor at the Military.com. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army - Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at CNN and CNN Headline News. This story originally appeared in Scout Warrior.

What the hell does this have to do with s-300 series of aa systems or Russian systems altogether if it is American? I understand you can read English, no?

Word of advice to people - before moving onto another system that is likely to fail, better get your current systems working. Thaad and alike seem to be common failures against 1960 missiles.

Also, system will be countered with newer tech like quasi ballistic missile systems that currently exist and change in countermeasure systems and hypersonic.  What this is, is proposing against something that is being replaced anyway.

miketheterrible wrote:What the hell does this have to do with s-300 series of aa systems or Russian systems altogether if it is American? I understand you can read English, no?

Word of advice to people - before moving onto another system that is likely to fail, better get your current systems working. Thaad and alike seem to be common failures against 1960 missiles.

Also, system will be countered with newer tech like quasi ballistic missile systems that currently exist and change in countermeasure systems and hypersonic.  What this is, is proposing against something that is being replaced anyway.

That is why I said Interesting concept , I mean the MKOV concept to hit MIRV , Like ABM caryying MKV to kill BM MKV

Nothing interesting in it or even smart. Even north Koreans can do this. Take BM with MIRV, convert warhead to carry multiple of conventional little warheads in a shotgun effect, and blast it at target.

It just that they can't get their current system to even work as intended. Just look at Saudi Arabia and how so many Yemen BM survived.  So this will be another money sink.