1/25/2024 0 Comments Daylite windows"In the past 10 years, E/O sensors have evolved with improved materials, producibility, greater wavelength capabilities, and improved spectral responsiveness at a lower cost," Jurcevich says. Lockheed Martin is one of three contractors - along with Raytheon Missile Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security - with MDA contracts to define MOKV proof-of-concept prototypes, demonstrate risk mitigation steps, assess the technical maturity of their concepts, and rank enabling technologies to minimize design risks. ![]() "Advances to E/O sensors have the potential to improve response time for multi-source information fusion, survivability, and reliability in missile defense applications," Jurcevich says. One current effort along those lines is the Missile Defense Agency's Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) technology risk reduction program, which will use the latest advancements in E/O technologies to improve the system's reliability while reducing its overall cost, says Bruce Jurcevich, program director-advanced interceptor systems at Lockheed Martin Missiles & Fire Control in Orlando, Fla. Navy team simulates the operation of the future MQ-25 during a demonstration of the Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System (UMCS) at NAS Patuxent River, Md. We will need a diversity of capabilities to deal with the current threat and those that may emerge in the future - not any one silver-bullet system, but a diversity of systems."Ī U.S. "We need to move forward to increase diversity and the ability to respond as the threats change, which they will. We are limited by being so heavily reliant on one technology - land-based radar," Karako continues. "We will need a diversity of solutions using a mix of sensors. "We currently have a primarily radar-based system and need to add capacity to that to buy time to get additional capabilities into the field to meet a spectrum of threats, not just big ICBMs. "It will be a number of years from decision to full fielding, but that's all the more reason to start right now," Karako says. Combining terrestrial radars below with electro-optical sensors orbiting above would dramatically help interceptors find their targets. IR satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), viewing the threat cloud from the side, observe not merely the radar cross-section of the warhead and other objects, but also their heat signature contrasted against the cold backdrop of space. They provide a better vantage point, more persistence and a different kind of look at the threat cloud created by a missile in mid-course. ![]() There are enough technologies on the shelf right now to allow for a robust space-based missile defense layer without waiting for more advanced technologies to arrive."Ī space-based sensor layer is the single most important next step in ballistic missile defense in the 2020s, he adds, to deal with the emergence of a new missile age, not just ballistic, but across all aspects of altitude and range. Getting space-based sensors is not really a technical problem, but political and cost. "It is important from a policy perspective that we not wait for the best and so thwart the good. The most important thing, considering today's threats, is to get workable missile-detection sensors deployed without waiting for the next generation in technology, Karako says. "The first is largely IR, while tracking the threat crowd as things come apart requires different technologies to sort it all out so the kill vehicle can collide with the most threatening item and avoid the rest. ![]() "The specific tasks for BMD are detection, tracking, and discrimination," says Thomas Karako, a senior fellow in the international security program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and head of the center's missile defense program. Missile launch detection systems may be land-, sea-, air-, or space-based, with many missile defense advocates calling for an increase in orbital sensors, which can provide day-and-night, all-weather global surveillance that other kinds of sensors cannot match - especially when the target launch centers are deep within denied airspace, such as North Korea. Russia and China announced successful hypersonic glide vehicle launches in 2016. Although hypersonic glide vehicles and missiles flying non-ballistic trajectories were first proposed as far back as World War II, technological advances only now are making these systems practicable. Maneuvering threats continue to be developed and fielded. Syring warned the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces in June 2017, one week before his retirement. "The ballistic missile threat is growing more sophisticated as countries continue to improve their missiles by increasing the range, incorporating ballistic missile defense (BMD) countermeasures, and making them more complex, survivable, reliable, and accurate," then-MDA Director Vice Adm.
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