The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is exploring the use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-borne sensors to add to its ballistic missile defense system to add capability to detect, track and intercept missiles fired by adversaries.
To that end, MDA is already at work with the Air Force.
“We have one agreement with the Army in general and we have smaller agreements with the Navy and Air Force, and this would be another agreement with them at the Aeronautical Systems Command at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio,” Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly told the Defense Writers Group earlier this month. “We work very closely with their program office…We are augmenting their staff and their contracting force in order to make sure we develop this capability to the greatest extent possible. It’s extremely promising…We’ve already begun work.”
MDA has emphasized the early interception of missiles, which requires tracking early in a missile’s flight after the rocket motors have burned out.
One of the first things O’Reilly did after his November 2008 arrival as MDA director was to read all the summer studies and work done by the Defense Science Board for the last decade.
Using UAV sensors to augment missile defense is not a new idea, he said. “This idea has been studied–about six-seven years ago, then there was an intensive review of it around 2006 and it seemed very promising.”
MDA is looking at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) Predator and Reaper UAVs.
“When we went back and looked at where they were today, sure enough the capability of a Predator at the time, gave us the same type of tracking data that we’re looking for in our radars: precision and intensity,” O’Reilly said. “It’s not the same communication system and fire control; we have to work on that. But the latest version, the Reaper, has even greater capability.”
MDA realized there was an existing sensor and platform.
“We have observed some intercepts with it and it is proven to be extremely accurate and extremely sensitive, and there’s very little modification we see that will be necessary to the UAVs themselves, but there will have to be some work on the ground system,” O’Reilly said. “It gives you a great capability from hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away to be able to view a missile launch and actually track it and provide data to our shooters”