BAE Systems said Monday that the detection of a separating inbound ballistic missile by BAE’s seeker enabled the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) weapon system to intercept its target during recent testing at the Pacific Missile Range Facility.
“In this test, the THAAD seeker had to detect the incoming warhead among multiple pieces of the incoming target missile,” John Watkins, BAE’s THAAD program director, said. “To further complicate things, this was the program’s first daylight engagement, meaning the seeker had to distinguish the target from false ‘targets’ created by reflected sunlight.”
THAAD prime contractor and systems integrator Lockheed Martin [LMT] and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted the test, which was the program’s 35th success in 43 tries (Defense Daily, June 27). The test was designed to examine how the interceptor and its seeker detect a separating target missile to destroy the warhead.
Watkins likened the achievement to “hitting a bullet with a bullet while the shell casing is flying along side and someone is shining a flashlight in your eyes.”
BAE’s seeker provides infrared imagery of the warhead to the missile computer to guide the interceptor to its target.
THAAD intercept testing will continue through 2009. Upcoming tests at the Pacific Missile Range will be conducted against increasingly complex targets outside the Earth’s atmosphere, BAE said. The company is scheduled to deliver the first production seekers in fiscal year 2009, it added.