The Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program was scheduled to use a Thursday flight test to collect data in space for the first time, according to officials from prime contractor Boeing [BA].
Boeing GMD Program Director Norm Tew said Wednesday that Thursday’s flight test, CTV-2, would use a target, but not intercept it, to prove out particular improvements. These, he said, include a set of redesigned divert thrusters on the kill vehicle, of which MDA will fire each and every thruster through a sequence of burns to not only understand the operational context but also performance and margins. MDA spokesman Richard Lehner said Thursday there are four thrusters on the interceptor.
Photo: Missile Defense Agency.
Tew said examining discrimination improvements to the interceptor is the second objective of the flight test. He said MDA will be able to use the target’s complex set of countermeasures and decoys to not only test out discrimination improvements, but more importantly, collect data in space to help evolve techniques and improvements for the future. Lehner said the target rocket is an intermediate-range class missile built by Orbital ATK [OA].
Boeing spokesman Dexter Henson said the flight test took place Thursday. Vandenberg AFB, Calif., hosted the flight test.
The test is for a three-stage interceptor to track a long-range, air-launched target equipped with countermeasures and decoys, MDA Director Vice Adm. James Syring said last week. The GMD system was created to destroy intermediate and long-range ballistic missile threats in space. Syring said Thursday’s non-intercept test was to prove out fixes that caused a failed 2010 test.
Tew said Thursday’s flight test would not only inform MDA’s work on the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) but also the following generation’s kill vehicle. He said Thursday’s test would directly contribute to algorithms and techniques used on RKV, of which Boeing, Raytheon [RTN] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] are collaborating on. RKV will use the same thrusters as used on Thursday’s flight test.
Jim Chilton, Boeing strategic missile and defense systems vice president and general manager, said Thursday Boeing and MDA will be able to make incremental improvements to GMD for a “lot less money” than it takes to create a new system as the cost of developing the weapon system is in the past. MDA’s goal, Chilton said, is to incrementally advance this and make ever step as applicable to the future as possible.
Tew said the next flight later this year, Flight Test-15 (FT-15), will be focused on the next-generation interceptor, which he said will feature improvements in both the booster and the kill vehicle beyond what was to be tested in Thursday’s flight test. A salvo engagement, in which two ground based interceptors target the same ICBM, is anticipated for 2018.
During that failed December 2010 test, MDA discovered that the divert thrusters induced heavy vibrations that disrupted the system’s inertial measurement unit—the guidance system sensor that provides flight data to assist the kill vehicle’s navigation—causing a failure (Defense Daily, January 19).
In 2019, MDA plans to test a two-stage ground based interceptor with a redesigned kill vehicle. A two-stage interceptor has not been approved by U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), but “with this capability, the battlespace and the engagement time and decision space that the warfighter has would greatly increase,” Syring said last week.
While Boeing is serving as prime contractor and systems integrator on the GMD program, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Orbital ATK [OA] are providing the systems that make up the capability. The system’s ground-based interceptors have been deployed to Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg.