20 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

Missile Defense Agency director lays out hurdles in path to layered homeland missile defense

By:

WASHINGTON — The Missile Defense Agency is planning to develop a layered homeland intercontinental ballistic missile defense architecture, but it must clear a range of hurdles to get after an approach that addresses emerging threats and fills a gap while a next-generation interceptor is developed, according to the agency's director.

The agency unveiled plans in its fiscal 2021 budget request in February to create a more layered homeland defense system that would include regional missile defense capability already resident with the Navy and Army to bolster homeland defense against ICBMs.

The plan would include establishing layers of defensive capability relying on the Aegis Weapon System, particularly the SM-3 Block IIA missiles used in the system, and a possible Aegis Ashore system in Hawaii. The underlay would also include the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The Army is already operating a THAAD battery in South Korea and Guam.

The layered approach would buy time while the Pentagon scrambles to field a new interceptor to replace older ground-based interceptors — after canceling its effort to redesign the kill vehicle for the GBIs — in its Ground-based Midcourse Defense system located primarily at Fort Greely, Alaska.

With little detail conveyed in MDA's budget request for a layered homeland missile defense plan, Congress is pressuring the agency to come up with a strategy and approach to putting the architecture in place in both the House and Senate passed FY21 defense authorization bills.

Much is riding on the success of an upcoming test of the SM-3 Block IIA missile, Vice Adm. Jon Hill said during a Heritage Foundation virtual event on Aug. 18. The missile has seen several test failures in the recent past.

“We're going to really stress the SM-3 Block IIA outside its design space,” Hill said. “It was designed for medium and intermediate range. Now we're going against long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles. The analysis says we'll be successful, but nothing is real to any of us until we actually get the empirical data from being out in the flight range.”

The test will involve several time zones on several different ranges and the same ICBM target used in the most recent GMD test, Hill said.

And while the test is still on track to happen by the end of the year, Hill said, challenges in coordination and travel due to the coronavirus pandemic could possibly have an impact on schedule.

When the pandemic hit, “we were ready and postured to go to the Pacific to execute” Flight Test Maritime-44, Hill said, “so we did get the target on station. So the target's out there in the Pacific and it's ready to roll.”

Following FTM-44, the agency would like to execute another test against a very complex ICBM target unlike the “simple” one being used in the upcoming test. That target will have “a lot of separation debris and that has a lot of countermeasures,” Hill said.

“We want to make sure that the system in total, from the space assets to the radar to the engage-on-remote capability that passes that information to the ship, that ship can actually sift through all that and say, ‘That's the [reentry vehicle] and that's the where the missile's going to go,‘” he added.

Success in the upcoming test doesn't mean the agency's work is done, Hill said. Upgrades will be required based on threats, combat system certifications will need to be conducted and work with the Navy to determine where Aegis ships would deploy will have to occur.

The agency will also have to determine how quickly it can ramp up its production line for SM-3 Block IIA missiles.

Then “if we succeed with Aegis, then we'll go right down the path with THAAD,” Hill said.

The second big challenge, after ensuring all the parts work to provide layered coverage, is developing engagement coordination between the different layers, according to Hill.

“Let's just say that step one is a ship off the coast as a complement to GMD. Those systems today talk already, but they're not talking in terms of being layered defenders,” Hill said. “So if GMD, for example, decides he's going to wait this first shot out and let the ship take it, we have to have the communication network to go do that. We have to have the technical architecture with the Command and Control Battle Management system, but in that context of layered defense and engagement coordination.”

Aegis ships are already able to do engagement coordination among each other and the work the Pentagon is doing to get THAAD and the Patriot air-and-missile defense system to coordinate are “extensible to that problem,” Hill said, “but we still need to do that kind of engineering and that sort of architecture work.”

And while a layered missile defense architecture for the homeland is an intricate one, “you don't have to solve the whole problem” at once, Rebecca Heinrichs, a missile defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, said during the Heritage Foundation event. But she cautioned that she did foresee challenges in establishing such an architecture on the political front rather than on the technical side.

“Congress always wants to vet these kinds of things, so even though it is Congress that wanted the SM-3 Block IIA test, whenever you start talking about which district it is going to be in, where it's going to go and that kind of thing, that is a political challenge that takes a lot of debate and conversation.”

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/2020/08/18/missile-defense-agency-director-lays-out-hurdles-in-path-to-layered-homeland-missile-defense/

Sur le même sujet

  • Four rocket companies are competing for Air Force funding, and it is war

    14 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial

    Four rocket companies are competing for Air Force funding, and it is war

    By ERIC BERGER Monday marked the deadline for four US rocket companies to submit bids for Air Force contracts, encompassing all national security launches from 2022 to 2026. This is a hugely consequential and much-contested bid process that has implications for the American aerospace industry for the next decade and beyond. The Air Force is seeking two providers for about two dozen launches. The prime contractor will receive 60% of the launches while the secondary contractor claims the remaining 40%. As the US military pays a premium for launch contracts to its nine reference orbits, this guaranteed revenue is extremely valuable to US companies aspiring to run a profitable launch business. The lead-up to Monday's deadline has included heavy political lobbying from the four companies: United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman. As a result of this, Congress is considering some changes to the Air Force's procurement policy, including an on-ramp for a third provider during the 2022 to 2026 period. But so far, the Air Force is resisting this. Here's a look at the four bidders and what is at stake for each of them. United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance—a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin that enjoyed a monopoly on national security launches before the emergence of SpaceX—may be bidding for its life. To wean itself off its costly Delta boosters (as well as the Russian rocket engines that go with its workhorse Atlas V rocket), ULA has been developing the Vulcan rocket to cut costs while maintaining performance. The company says the Vulcan will be ready for its first flight in 2021. "Vulcan Centaur will provide higher performance and greater affordability while continuing to deliver our unmatched reliability and orbital accuracy precision from our treasured cryogenic Centaur upper stage," ULA's chief, Tory Bruno, said in a news release Monday. "ULA is the best partner for national security space launch, and we are the only provider to demonstrate experience flying to all orbits including the most challenging heavy-class missions, providing the bedrock foundation for the lowest risk portfolio of two launch service providers for the US Air Force." With increasing competition from SpaceX, Europe's Arianespace, Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Russian launch vehicles, ULA has been unable to capture much of the commercial market for satellite launches in the last decade. Therefore, it has largely been reliant on government business, mostly from the military. But ULA also relies on NASA through its science missions and lifting cargo and crew missions to the International Space Station. If the company does not emerge victorious from this competition, it faces an uncertain future unless Vulcan can become commercially viable. Moreover, ULA will lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars in government money to finalize Vulcan if it does not receive an award. Historically, Boeing and Lockheed have been stingy parents, and whether or not they would pay to complete Vulcan is unclear. One intriguing twist with ULA's bid is that its Vulcan rocket will use the BE-4 rocket engine, which is being developed and manufactured by Blue Origin—one of the four competitors in the Air Force bidding process. Blue Origin has said the Air Force competition was designed to unfairly benefit ULA. SpaceX The Hawthorne, California-based rocket company is the only bidder proposing to use rockets that are already flying—the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters. This family of rockets has had a string of 49 successful launches since a static fire accident in September 2016, and according to SpaceX, it can meet all of the Air Force's desired orbits and payload specifications. "SpaceX means to serve as the Air Force's long-term provider for space launch, offering existing, certified, and proven launch systems capable of carrying out the full spectrum of national security space-launch missions and requirements," said the company's president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell. Since the Air Force agreed to admit SpaceX to the national security launch competition in 2015, the company has won several contracts for key missions and begun flying them for the military. These include the National Reconnaissance Office Launch 76, Orbital Test Vehicle 5, Global Positioning System III-2, and STP-2 flights. SpaceX also likely will offer the government the lowest price on service to orbit. However, in its criteria for awarding missions, the Air Force listed price among the last of its considerations. Due to its lower price point, especially with is reusable Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX has considerable commercial business to offset the loss of Air Force contracts. But it would hurt financially, all the same. Blue Origin Jeff Bezos' rocket company has bid its very large New Glenn rocket for the Air Force missions. However, when this rocket will begin flying is not entirely clear, as there are questions about whether it will be ready by the beginning of the 2022 contracting period. What is clear is that Blue Origin does not believe the US Air Force has created a fair bidding process. Already, the company has filed a "pre-award" protest with the US Government Accountability Office. "The Air Force is pursuing a flawed acquisition strategy for the National Security Space Launch program," Blue Origin said, according to SpaceNews. The Air Force decision to award contracts to just two companies creates a "duopoly," Blue Origin says, and it limits commercial development of strategic US assets such as rocket engines and boosters. Bezos has been investing about $1 billion a year of his own money into Blue Origin, which has largely been used to support development of the BE-4 engine and New Glenn rocket. He is likely to continue development of the New Glenn rocket without Air Force funding, but company officials say it is not fair to hold their wealthy founder against their bid. Northrop Grumman Northrop has been developing the Omega rocket for this competition since at least 2016. The Omega vehicle differs from the other entrants in the competition as its first and second stages, as well as side-mounted boosters, are powered by solid-rocket motors rather than liquid-fueled engines. The bet by Northrop is that the US military, through its national security launch contract, would want to support one of the nation's most critical suppliers of solid-rocket motors for intercontinental ballistic missiles. Northrop officials have not said whether they would continue development of the Omega rocket if Northrop were to lose out on the Air Force contract. Northrop's bid suffered a setback in May when an "anomaly" occurred during test firing of its solid-propellant Castor 600 rocket motor, the Omega rocket's first stage. From a video provided by the company, a major part of the rocket's large nozzle appeared to break apart, blasting debris around the area. Afterward, a Northrop vice president, Kent Rominger, called the test a success. "It appears everything worked very, very well on this test," he said. "And at the very end when the engine was tailing off, we observed the aft exit cone, maybe a portion of it, doing something a little strange that we need to go further look into." Nevertheless, the test cannot have instilled absolute confidence in the Air Force. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/four-rocket-companies-are-competing-for-air-force-funding-and-it-is-war/

  • These US partners in the Asia-Pacific are to receive ScanEagle drones

    20 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial

    These US partners in the Asia-Pacific are to receive ScanEagle drones

    By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — The U.S. Department of Defense has announced a contract award for 34 Insitu ScanEagle drones under the Foreign Military Sales program to partners in the Asia-Pacific region. Under the $47.9 million contract, announced May 31, the UAVs are for the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Respectively, they will take delivery of twelve, eight, eight and six ScanEagles. The manufacturer is a Boeing subsidiary. The announcement marks the first time that military equipment will be transferred to Vietnam following the end of a U.S. arms embargo imposed since the communist takeover there in 1975. It was fully lifted in 2016. The order also provides for spare payloads, spare and repair parts, support equipment, tools, training, technical services, and field service representatives. Work is expected to be completed in 2022. Defense News understands from multiple sources that the UAVs will be provided to these countries by the U.S. government, although there are conflicting reports on whether these will falls under the purview of the DoD's capacity-building program or the maritime security initiative announced in 2015. One of the key advantages of the ScanEagle is its ability to be launched by a pneumatic catapult unit and recovered by Insitu's Skyhook system, which means it can be operated from any patch of open space or from aboard a ship, negating the need for a runway. Sensor payloads available for the UAV include electro-optic, infrared and high-resolution video cameras that enable the operator to track stationary and moving targets. The UAVs will assist the recipient countries in improving maritime domain awareness over their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. The contract announcement came on the same day that the DoD released its latest Indo-Pacific Strategy Report. The document lists as key priorities, among other things, building partner capacity and enhancing maritime domain awareness for third party partners in the region, as well as strengthening interoperability that includes increased information sharing between the U.S. and other like-minded countries in the region. All the recipient nations in this contract have interests in the South China Sea, with Indonesia being the only country among this group of four that does not claim ownership of any of the islands, features and rocks in the disputed Spratly or Paracel groups. https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2019/06/05/these-us-partners-in-the-asia-pacific-are-to-receive-scaneagle-drones/

  • Top 3 British Army programmes for new UK Government - Army Technology

    15 juillet 2024 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    Top 3 British Army programmes for new UK Government - Army Technology

    The new Labour team at the Ministry of Defence will have to balance modernisation plans in the British Army with a shortfall in funding.

Toutes les nouvelles