By B.C. Kessner
Raytheon‘s [RTN] quantum cascade laser bid for the Army’s Common Infrared Countermeasures (CIRCM) competition offers the right blend of new technology, mature components, light weight, and production-ready affordability, executives said recently.
“Scorpion’s laser is really a perfect technology fit for any DIRCM needs,” Richard Janik, program director for Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) Systems at Raytheon Missile Systems, told Defense Daily. “We believe that we can show, because we’re in production, that we are going to be the least expensive CIRCM program that the Army’s going to see.”
Scorpion features Raytheon’s DIRCM turret and a rugged quantum cascade laser that company engineers have adapted from the seeker of the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile (Defense Daily, Oct. 26). The company is attempting to leverage both new commercial laser technology and the Pentagon’s previous multi-billion dollar investments on air-to- air missile seekers to generate a low-cost and lightweight option for the Army.
Executives from several firms vying for the CIRCM competition said they still expect the request for proposals (RFP) by the end of the month and a technology demonstration (TD) phase award in June.
The Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) Contracting Center, on behalf of Program Director Aircraft Survivability Equipment, intends to solicit a 21-month TD program for a laser based CIRCM system to protect rotary wing aircraft from infra-red (IR) guided missiles.
The contracting center yesterday was unable to comment about when the RFP would be released.
System maturity, weight, and affordability are the key attributes at least five known competitors must showcase in the contest for what could be a several billion dollar program.
The Army determined that a requirement exists to integrate a laser based CIRCM system to its BAE Systems Common Missile Warning System (CMWS) after finding BAE’s advanced threat ATIRCM system was too heavy for rotorcraft other than Boeing [BA] Chinooks. This sparked changes to the acquisition approach for the CIRCM system after reduced purchase quantities triggered higher unit costs and a breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Amendment.
AMCOM has said that the need for a relatively mature system and the risk associated with unproven technologies has resulted in a change to the weight requirement and acquisition approach for CIRCM. “The TD phase will not support the development of new or high risk technologies that have not already been demonstrated in a relevant environment,” AMCOM’s pre-solicitation said.
DIRCM Incumbents BAE and Northrop Grumman [NOC] have been providing aircraft survivability systems for the Pentagon for about the last 10 years and plan to compete on CIRCM.
BAE recently unveiled its Boldstroke DIRCM aircraft survivability system that the company said has taken over half of the weight out of the fielded ATIRCM system (Defense Daily, Oct. 26).
Northrop Grumman makes the large aircraft (LAIRCM) system for the Air Force and Navy, and has teamed with Finmeccanica‘s Selex Galileo to integrate the Eclipse micro- pointer/tracker with the Viper multifunction laser.
ITT [ITT] has teamed with Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Acculite division to offer the Army a CIRCM system. ITT’s approach relies on integrating components recently developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. The system relies on fiber-optic cable to connect a pointer-tracker control unit to multiple pointer-trackers that aim laser energy at heat-seeking enemy missiles.
Raytheon’s Scorpion incorporates quantum cascade laser technology used by universities and development labs to generate high precision laser lines for scientific experiments and instrumentation.
“If you could open up that box, the beauty of it is that there is not much there, it’s very simple,” Janik said recently at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. “This is in contrast to other pointer tracker systems…they tend to be complicated,” he added.
Raytheon Missile Systems has produced 5,000 AIM-9X seekers and already has the supply base, second sources, and other things that would impact the affordability of the system being addressed, John Patterson, the company’s public relations and communications senior manager, said. “These are coming off production line already and we’ve got plenty of capacity to do more, all we have to do is a modification.”
Concerning reliability, Janik and Patterson pointed to the fact that the company has more than a million hours of flight time on the tracker system in its current application. “And this is a really rugged environment, on the wingtips of fighters,” Janik added.
The weight factor is another area where Raytheon believes Scorpion will set itself apart from the competition. It derives from designs for a missile, where weight is an extremely important factor, and is therefore extremely light and compact.
People tend to look at helicopters, especially the larger ones, and think that weight is not such a big deal, Janik said. “However, you really have to pay attention even on heaviest platforms because the mission pays a penalty for the weight of the systems. When you put ATIRCM on, you have to take an infantry guy off, or ammo…this costs mission capability. We’re hoping to give the Army something much more reliable, lighter, and affordable for all it’s helos since this is the common-IRCM,” he added.