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2021-09-01

Lockheed Contracted to Boost U.S. Missile Defence

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded Lockheed Martin a US$157 million contract to augment the Command, Control, Battle Management & Communications (C2BMC) system’s engagement support capability for Ground-Based Midcourse Defence (GMD) that protects the country from long-range ballistic missile attacks.

The GMD system includes silo-based interceptors, connections to sensors on land and sea, distributed fire control and launch support systems.

It is known that today’s battlespace is the most contested since the Cold War. Offensive missile systems with maturing sophistication from rogue states pose a growing threat to the U.S. Helping the nation counter these threats is the C2BMC system.

Fielded in 2004, C2BMC is one of the first operationally deployed Multi-Domain Systems, integrating systems and sensors operating in space, on land and at sea. This network operates 24/7 to support real-world operations at more than 30 locations around the world, including U.S. Strategic, Northern, European, Indo-Pacific, Space and Central Commands.

The MDA conducts multiple operational and developmental tests each year to test various aspects of the Missile Defense System (MDS). To provide manifold opportunities to destroy hostile missiles in all phases of flight, the MDS uses an integrated, “layered” architecture. The integrating element and foundation for that architecture is the C2BMC.

The C2BMC links the multitude of terrestrial, space and sea-based missile sensors and weapons systems into an integrated system-of-systems to provide a common view of potential or current threats across the globe.

Through C2BMC Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) weapons systems are able to engage and intercept missiles leveraging launch-on-remote sensor data capability, which significantly increases the defended area that the weapon system can negate the missile threat.

Currently, the GMD system engages a threat using the best single source data from multiple radars. Partnering with the MDA, the C2BMC team increases the system’s overall capability through an agile development process. The upgrades have entailed everything from integrating new missile defence sensors and systems into the MDS to increasing the interaction fidelity of current elements.

The next upgrade to C2BMC, called Spiral 8.2-7, will provide GMD with a single, real-time, composite picture of threat system tracks by correlating and fusing data from a broader set of sensors, including satellites, ground- and ship-based radars. Once the spiral upgrade is complete, the GMD system will see the same battlespace picture currently seen by combatant commanders.

Additionally, Spiral 8.2-7 will enable C2BMC to report hypersonic threat activity onto the Link 16 military tactical data link network and display to the operators.

Mark Johnson, director of Missile Defense Solutions for Lockheed Martin, explains: “C2BMC is a 21st century battle management system, with a global infrastructure capable of supporting many different types of missions. As customers look for innovations to advance joint all-domain operations, they can look to C2BMC.”

Currently being integrated into C2BMC through three concurrent programme upgrades are the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, the Air Force’s BMD Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) Architecture and Space Domain Awareness capability.

Disruption Requirement

For the warfighters dedicated to homeland defence, every second counts when protecting the nation from threats. In these critical moments, customers make decisions with absolute urgency and reliability to keep the country safe.

“As our products are built using open standards and designs, they can be seamlessly integrated with other systems. An integrated system improves information-flow and decision-making to the point-of-need for all services and all domains”, insists Dr. Tony DeSimone, Vice President of Engineering & Technology at Rotary and Mission Systems. “This integration is happening faster than ever due to transformative changes in business processes, like leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Agile and DevSecOps in software development, and model-based engineering.”

Next Generation Interceptor

Since securing the contract for the development and demonstration phase of the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) earlier this year, the Lockheed Martin team is delivering on developing this critical homeland defence capability. NGI is intended to keep pace with ever evolving missile threats–and to do that, digital transformation is essential.

With an interdisciplinary, digital thread backbone made up of data from the entire product lifecycle, every element of NGI is anchored in a common model to streamline design, production and sustainment.

With all digital-first data, the team is using smart tools to bridge the step from design, to test, to production in the intelligent digital factory in Courtland, Al. With the use of open architecture common code through the Lockheed Martin Software Factory, the team will benefit from significant reductions in software development from programme startup.

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