Voting
?What about new design for our website
- Excellent
- Very Good
- Good
Voting Number 1647
- Birds of Goodness executes 36th humanitarian aid airdrop in north Gaza
- Birds of Goodness executes 35th humanitarian aid airdrop in north Gaza
- Led by the Commander of Joint Operations .. A delegation from the Ministry of Defense, has initiated several-day visit to the People's Republic of China
- Birds of Goodness executes 34th humanitarian aid airdrop in north Gaza
- Birds of Goodness' executes 33rd humanitarian aid airdrop in north Gaza
- Birds of Goodness delivers over 2,000 tonnes of aid via 32 airdrops since humanitarian operation began
- On the 2nd day of Eid al-Fitr... Birds of Goodness Executes 31st Humanitarian Airdrop and Eid Clothing in North Gaza
- On the first day of Eid Al-Fitr,UAE and Jordan conduct 14th joint food aid airdrop in northern Gaza
- UAE and Jordan conduct 13th joint food aid airdrop in northern Gaza
- 'Birds of Goodness' Executes 29th Humanitarian Aid Airdrop and Eid Clothing in North Gaza.
- UAE and Jordan conduct 12th joint food aid airdrop in northern Gaza
- 'Birds of Goodness' Executes 28th Humanitarian Aid Airdrop and Eid Clothing in North Gaza
- UAE and Jordan conduct 11th joint food aid airdrop in northern Gaza
- ‘Birds of Goodness’ delivers over 1,500 tonnes of aid via 27 airdrops since humanitarian operation began
- 'Birds of Goodness' executes 26th humanitarian aid airdrop in north Gaza
- 'Birds of Goodness' executes 25th humanitarian aid airdrop in north Gaza
- UAE and Jordan conduct 10th joint food aid airdrop in northern Gaza
- 'Birds of Goodness' executes 24th humanitarian aid airdrop in north Gaza
- UAE and Jordan conduct 9th joint food aid airdrop in northern Gaza
- Saab Secures Order for Four Additional Gripen C for Hungary
2018-06-03
Boeing’s Ballistic Missile System Hits a Bullet with a Bullet
A Boeing-led team has received a six-year, $6.56 billion contract modification from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency to continue the production and sustainment of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) ballistic missile defence system. With Boeing serving as prime contractor and Northrop Grumman, OrbitalATK and Raytheon as subcontractors, the extended contract covers the delivery of a new missile field with 20 additional silos, including two additional silos in an existing missile field at Fort Greely, Alaska, and 20 additional Ground Based Interceptors.
The system works to detect, intercept and destroy long-range ballistic missiles in the middle of their flight path and when its Interceptor destroyed an intercontinental ballistic missile-range target, 2017 saw Boeing’s GMD team and its U.S. Missile Defense Agency customer receive two awards for “hitting a bullet with a bullet”. The flight test honour topped off a year of successful programme milestones, including the delivery of the 44th Ground Based Interceptor to the Missile Defense Agency at Fort Greely, Alaska in November 2017.
The Boeing-led group will now develop a boost vehicle and integrate it with a redesigned kill vehicle, while supplying GBI assets for laboratories and tests, developing, integrating, testing and deploying ground systems software, alongside provision of cybersecurity and logistics support.
Work will take place in government and contractor locations in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, and Colorado through to December 2023, with the award raising the contract’s total potential value to $12.6 billion. MDA obligated $213.8 million to the programme in fiscal 2017, while fiscal 2018 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be made available at the time of award.
Ground-based Midcourse Defence
Faced with ever-evolving long-range threats, GMD is the backbone of the United States’ homeland ballistic missile defense system, with Boeing as the system’s prime contractor since 1998, partnering with its Missile Defense Agency customer in the design, development, integration, test and sustainment of all GMD components across fifteen time zones. These including Ground-based Interceptors (GBIs) at two locations (Ft. Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg AFB, CA), alongside seven types of land, sea and space sensors and multiple distributed fire control systems; indeed, this year sees 44 deployed GBIs, 40 based at Ft. Greely and four at Vandenberg AFB.
When ballistic missile defence sensors detect a missile launch, data is fused and fed into the GMD fire control system, which is used to launch one or more GBIs to fly into the path of an incoming missile. They then release an Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) using onboard sensors to hunt down and physically collide with the warhead, destroying it upon impact.
Using a three-stage booster to perform intercepts over great distances, GMD is specifically designed to counter long-range ballistic missiles threatening the U.S. homeland. This range gives GMD the greatest coverage area of any U.S. missile defense system, defending all fifty states and Canada.
Other missile defence systems, including Aegis, THAAD and Patriot, are generally classified as ‘regional’ systems, being geared towards short to intermediate range ballistic missile threats. Some such systems may have homeland defense applications in certain circumstances, but they generally have much smaller coverage areas compared to GMD and much less capability, against ICBMs.
Key GMD System Elements
• AN/SPY-1 Radar
As a key component of Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System on land and at sea, the AN/SPY-1 Radar is critical for the U.S. Navy’s aerial radar infrastructure. U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers employ SPY-1 for Aegis Sea-based BMD, while on land the radar system is utilised by Aegis Ashore missile defence sites.
Developed by Lockheed Martin, the SPY-1 radar was originally designed as an air defense system, but has been upgraded to include a ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability. SPY-1’s passive electronic scanning system is computer controlled using four complementary antennas to provide full 360-degree coverage, while operating in S-band as a multi-function phased-array radar capable of search, automatic detection, transition-to-track, air and surface target tracking and missile engagement support.
• Cobra Dane radar
Cobra Dane serves multiple roles in the BMD system, detecting both Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and sea-launched missiles in its coverage area while, upon detection, it can classify re-entry vehicles and other objects in space. The GMD’s Fire and Mission Control system may then use the Cobra Dane for real-time information as the radar tracks ballistic missiles accurately to commit the launch of Ground-Based Interceptor missiles. Cobra Dane also provides information to update ballistic missile tracking after the launch of the interceptor.
• C2BMC capabilities
To test various aspects of the regional/theatre Ballistic Missile Defense System, multiple operational and developmental tests are conducted each year by the Missile Defense Agency. The BMDS has a layered architecture comprised of boost, mid-course and terminal domains designed to provide global protection against all ranges of ballistic missile threats.
Instrumental to the success of BMDS tests is the Command and Control, Battle Management and Communications integrating system (C2BMC) linking the wide array of space-based, terrestrial and sea-based sensors and weapons systems to enable the successful intercept. As the “S” in the Ballistic Missile Defense System, C2BMC interconnects the disparate BMDS elements into an integrated system-of-systems able to engage and intercept missiles by leveraging launch-on-remote sensor data capability to increase the defended area significantly and enable the weapon system to negate a missile threat.
• Defence Support Programme
The Defence Support Program (DSP) is a constellation of satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) detecting the launch of strategic and tactical missiles, space launches and nuclear detonations with infrared heat sensors. DSP satellites are operated by the U.S. Air Force Space Command and, since the programme’s first satellite launch in 1970, DSP has been a critical component of the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment (ITW/AA) system.
• Ground-based Interceptor (GBI)
The Ground-based Interceptors (GBIs) are silo-launched intercept ballistic missiles in their mid-course, while remaining outside of the atmosphere at their highest trajectory. The GBI consists of a multi-stage rocket booster (Boost Vehicle [BV]) and a kinetic kill vehicle (Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle [EKV]), enabling interception of ballistic missile warheads via hit-to-kill technology.
• Fire Control and Communication
As the software used to manage the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, Fire Control and Communication (GFC) receives data from various sensors across the globe via the Defense Satellite Communication System and compiles this information to create a picture of the battlespace. Moreover, it updates the warfighter on the status of the GBI fleet, which facilitates engagement planning and launch decisions.
Upon GBI launch, the GFC relays real time in-flight targeting data through one of the six operational In-Flight Data Terminals to the exo-atmospheric kill vehicle. GMD Fire Control is also configured to receive information via C2BMC, allowing sensors such as Aegis SPY-1, TPY-2 to contribute to its homeland defence mission.
• Long Range Discrimination Radar
The Long-Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) is a ground-breaking midcourse tracking radar that will provide continuous coverage and improved discrimination capabilities for CONUS. Under development at Clear Air Force Station in Alaska since 2016, initial operating capability is expected by 2020. The radar will support the layered U.S. BMD defence system against threats emanating from the Pacific where it will provide more deployment flexibility for the Sea-Based X-band radar.
The radar will consist of a solid-state, active electronically-scanned antenna, operating in the S-band frequency where it will be ground-based and use gallium nitride (GaN) technology enabling continuous coverage, even when it is undergoing maintenance. The radar is expected to improve the U.S. GMD system by providing metric data to enhance discrimination capabilities or through its ability to distinguish lethal objects from debris and decoys. It may also support U.S. Air Force space operations, including its situational awareness missions.
• Sea-based X-band Radar (SBX)
The Sea-Based X-band Radar (SBX) is a unique radar housed on a decommissioned North Sea oil rig. It produces very high-resolution images of incoming threat clouds, which helps BMD interceptors discriminate between lethal objects and debris.
SBX has been deployed on numerous occasions to monitor North Korea’s long-range missile tests and routinely contributes to USAF flight tests of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS)
The Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) is a space-based system developed and operated by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) that detects and tracks ballistic missiles.
Having served as a complement to other U.S. space-based platforms, this system is an experimental component of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) as a precursor to the planned missile tracking constellation known as the Precision Tracking Space System (PTSS).
The aim of the Space Tracking and Surveillance System is to track missiles through all three phases of flight (boost, midcourse and terminal), discriminating between warheads and decoys, transmitting data to other systems to be used to cue radars and providing intercept handovers and data for missile defence interceptors to hit their target.
• Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS)
The Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS) is a constellation of integrated satellites in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) and high elliptical orbit (HEO), working with ground-based data processing and command-and-control centres. This system is designed to provide early missile warning, cue missile defences, deliver technical intelligence (TECHINT) and support battlespace awareness.
The SBIRS is intended to replace the aging DSP system of satellites because SBIRS satellites can scan large swaths of territory to detect missile activity, while honing-in on areas of interest for lower-scale activities, including the launch of tactical ballistic missiles. These sensors are independently tasked, meaning that the satellite can both scan a wide territory and fixate on a specific area of concern simultaneously.
• TPY-2 X-band Radar
AN/TPY-2 radars are high resolution phased array X-band radars designed and built for missile defence missions and deployed in either terminal or forward-based modes. The United States currently has 10 TPY-2 radars with plans to produce two more, while seven of the TPY-2s will be in terminal mode and assigned to Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) units and five others are in forward-based mode, two of which are deployed to Japan monitoring North Korean missile activity. The remaining three are deployed in Turkey, Middle East and the Persian Gulf region, while being oriented towards Iran.
In terminal mode, the TPY-2 radar is integrated with a THAAD system serving as its primary sensor. Here, the sensor is oriented upward to track the late stages of the missile track enabling the THAAD’s capability to intercept outside the atmosphere once a re-entry vehicle enters the atmosphere, while carrying a shorter range owing to the radar orientation.
• Upgraded Early Warning Radar
Upgraded Early Warning Radars (UEWR) provide detection, tracking, and classification data to the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). Three UEWRs are currently deployed by the United States from locations in Beale AFB in California, Fylingdales in the United Kingdom and Thule AFB in Greenland, while the Missile Defense Agency is also working to upgrade the Early Warning Radars in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Clear, Alaska. UEWRs are nearly identical to Early Warning Radars in technical capability, but contain certain software and hardware upgrades enabling the radars to communicate with the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system.
Utilising an upgraded receiver exciter and frequency time standard in their missile defence role, UEWRs primarily perform target classification and missile tracking to cue other sensors and interceptors. Although they cannot perform midcourse discrimination, they can begin to classify objects as threatening or non-threatening so narrowing the range of objects that a higher resolution radar, such as the Sea-based X-band Radar (SBX), would need to observe.
Reference Text/Photo:
www.boeing.com , www.mda.mil
Visitors Comments
Related Topics
.
No Comments