THAAD
Building on Past Successes, Each Test Now Brings
Higher Degrees of Difficulty and Sophistication.
by Tom Marlowe
MSMF Correspondent
A successful test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system has put the program on track, clearing the way for a final set of flight tests to be concluded in 2010.
On June 25, the U.S. Army, as the program lead, fired a THAAD interceptor against an air-launched target for the first time at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Hawaii, destroying a reentry vehicle on an inbound missile threat for the ninth of 14 eventual flight tests in the program, Colonel William Lamb, THAAD program manager told Military Space & Missile Forum.
“The test scenario involved a medium- range threat representative target that was air launched from a C-17 over the Pacific,” Lamb explained. “It’s a pretty fantastic thing when you watch it. The target is mounted on a pallet. It is jettisoned out of the backend of the C-17. Parachutes come out and they orient the target. The parachutes are cut away; the pallets are cut away. The target ignites and it flies 500-plus miles and then we intercept it over the Pacific. It’s amazing technology that allows it to do that.”
The C-17 flew from the decommissioned USS Tripoli, which has served as a missile launch platform for earlier flight tests. This test also involved the first time THAAD demonstrated its effectiveness against a separating target. The target’s booster rocket fell away, leaving a reentry vehicle with a payload and a separating booster for THAAD radar to distinguish between.
“That’s a more complex target, particularly from a radar perspective. The THAAD radar is an X-band phased array radar. X-band radars are very good for discrimination and being able to discern out the reentry vehicle or other components or debris of a target complex,” Lamb noted.
The radar worked perfectly, zeroing in on its intended target, tracking it and guiding the interceptor to meet the appropriate threat. This ninth test in the latest series of THAAD flight tests was the fifth test to intercept a target—and all five have been successful.
The test also was the fourth conducted at the PMRF, Lamb added. The Army conducted previous tests at the White Sands Missile Range, but the program left there in 2006 to take advantage of expanded opportunities for testing at PMRF. In addition to intercepting airlaunched targets, the Army also can interoperate with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System to demonstrate an integrated missile defense capability.
“On this particular test, we passed a cue to an AEGIS ship that was participating in the test,” Lamb elaborated. “ By cue, I mean our radar acquired the incoming ballistic missile target and passed that track data to the Aegis BMD system. That enabled its SPY-1 radar to acquire, track and conduct a simulated engagement against that ballistic missile.”
THAAD faces five more flight tests in the next several years, the next of which is scheduled for September. During that test, the Army Test and Evaluation Command will assess the missile defense system’s performance to provide its stamp of approval to the program.
“When you come to one of these flight tests, you are intercepting a bullet with a bullet in space,” Lamb stated. “THAAD can intercept inside the atmosphere and outside the atmosphere.
It’s the only system out there that does that. When you go to a flight test, you are intercepting with very tight tolerances and you need to have high confidence that you have a solid, proven design.”
The Missile Defense Agency and its chief THAAD contractor, Lockheed Martin, have that confidence.
PIECES OF THAAD
The THAAD model is actually fully validated prior to a flight test, Tom McGrath, THAAD program manager at Lockheed Martin, told MSMF.
“We are unique,” McGrath declared. “When you look around, five for five is a pretty impressive capability to demonstrate. I don’t think anyone else has done that well. In our opinion, it’s nine for nine because it was just as complicated to make all of those missions happen successfully. We believe we have the right planning, procedures and processes that will keep us going forward on this successful path.
“As of flight nine, we are stressing the weapons system pretty well with our threats. They are quite complicated and they are starting to stress the edges of the specifications,” he added.
Each test adds a layer of complexity by introducing different attitudes and ranges and modifying the target slightly. Each test confirms that the piece of the weapons system have been working well together. Flight test 10, for example, will involve two interceptors launched against a single target threat. Next year, flight 12 will fly two interceptors against two incoming targets.
THAAD is made up of a launcher, eight missiles on the launcher, a fire control, and radar. Production started in December 2006 with Lockheed Martin building 48 missiles, six launchers and two fire control units. Raytheon is building the X-band radar units.
Lockheed Martin plans to start delivering production hardware for ground segments of the system within a year. The interceptor will follow in the next several years. The company also will go under contract for the next two fire units. The company, of course, depends on its THAAD teammates to produce a final product.
Raytheon is the largest of those teammates, fielding the radar out of its facilities in Woburn, Mass. Raytheon also has assisted in development of the fire control system and served as part of the weapons system organization and the test organization.
Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technology Corp. in Canoga Park, Calif., and Parajet of Sacramento, Calif., have been vital suppliers of key components of the system as well. Honeywell’s operations in Tampa, Fla., have provided the inertial measuring unit and the mission computer for THAAD, while BAE Systems in Nashua, N.H., produces the system seeker. Northrop Grumman Corp. also manufacturers an important sensor.
Across the team, most of the personnel are stationed with Lockheed Martin’s program headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., the site of the missile development. About half of the weapons systems personnel and some of the test personnel work out of the Lockheed Martin facility in Huntsville, Ala., where they provide the fire control, the launcher and integrated logistics support. The next largest contingent of personnel resides in Woburn with Raytheon.
“We are in production at a fairly low rate, but we are building hardware that will go into the field,” McGrath said. “At the end of May, we activated the first battery—Alpha Battery/4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment of the 11th Brigade of the 32nd Army Air Missile Defense Command out of Fort Lewis. We are approaching 90 soldiers who are actually training to field the equipment.”
Soldiers operated the THAAD system during the recent flight tests, as they have been doing for some time, McGrath emphasized. The tests are designed to maintain operational realism so that any kinks can be worked out as they arise.
So training on the pieces of the THAAD system and the overall program has become an important element of Lockheed Martin’s work. The contractor trains soldiers with the individual pieces of the launcher, the radar and the fire control, then adds collective training where all parts of the system are working together to provide a functional solution.
“Later next year, the soldiers should be ready to start deploying where the U.S. Army decides they should go. We are in an interesting phase right now. We are finishing up our flight test program and at the same time we are building the first production units and getting the Army trained and ready to accept the fielding,” McGrath commented.
LETHAL EVOLUTION
Development of the THAAD missile defense program began in the early 1990s, but its flight tests were failing by the end of the decade, recalled Lamb. The Department of Defense learned from those failures, and working with Lockheed Martin, eventually entered the next, and much more successful, stage of the program.
“THAAD, to be lethal, has to hit within very tight accuracies to destroy incoming reentry vehicles and to destroy their payloads. In 1999, the program successfully conducted two intercepts at White Sands Missile Range and the department decided to transit the program into its next stage of development,” Lamb remarked.
So between 1999 and 2005, program personnel redesigned some program components and really focused on the producability of the system—making it fiscally and realistically possible for the production and integration of its elements. THAAD would not return to flight tests until November 2005.
But once it returned, it did so with a vengeance. Lamb attributes the success of nine out of nine flight tests since 2005 to the highly effective infrastructure of the ground test equipment. The equipment permits the Army to thoroughly assess the performance of the system with a high degree of predictability, thereby creating a high degree of confidence of how the system will perform in a given flight test.
The activation of the first battery also serves as a significant milestone within the program. The Army will field the battery over the next year. As soldiers complete new equipment training for THAAD, they will enter collective training and then operational testing. The Army will conduct two operational tests—a force development and experimentation test and a limited user test—prior to subjecting THAAD to the scrutiny of a Material Release Review Board. The review board will review all of the data from all of the flight tests, the ground tests, and the operational tests to grant approval for formal release to Army forces.
Meanwhile, the Army plans to activate the second battery sometime in 2009. The service will build that out over the next year or two. Current plans for THAAD call for the eventual activation of four or five batteries with a basic missile load on each—yielding 96 intercepts apiece. The batteries have an anticipated lifecycle of 30 to 40 years.
“It’s a historic time for the program as we transition out of this first phase of development and start fielding to the Army,” Lamb concluded. “The flight test program is indicative of where we think that the design and the performance of the system are. It’s a great time to be on the program.” ♦
On June 25, the U.S. Army, as the program lead, fired a THAAD interceptor against an air-launched target for the first time at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Hawaii, destroying a reentry vehicle on an inbound missile threat for the ninth of 14 eventual flight tests in the program, Colonel William Lamb, THAAD program manager told Military Space & Missile Forum.
“The test scenario involved a medium- range threat representative target that was air launched from a C-17 over the Pacific,” Lamb explained. “It’s a pretty fantastic thing when you watch it. The target is mounted on a pallet. It is jettisoned out of the backend of the C-17. Parachutes come out and they orient the target. The parachutes are cut away; the pallets are cut away. The target ignites and it flies 500-plus miles and then we intercept it over the Pacific. It’s amazing technology that allows it to do that.”
The C-17 flew from the decommissioned USS Tripoli, which has served as a missile launch platform for earlier flight tests. This test also involved the first time THAAD demonstrated its effectiveness against a separating target. The target’s booster rocket fell away, leaving a reentry vehicle with a payload and a separating booster for THAAD radar to distinguish between.
“That’s a more complex target, particularly from a radar perspective. The THAAD radar is an X-band phased array radar. X-band radars are very good for discrimination and being able to discern out the reentry vehicle or other components or debris of a target complex,” Lamb noted.
The radar worked perfectly, zeroing in on its intended target, tracking it and guiding the interceptor to meet the appropriate threat. This ninth test in the latest series of THAAD flight tests was the fifth test to intercept a target—and all five have been successful.
The test also was the fourth conducted at the PMRF, Lamb added. The Army conducted previous tests at the White Sands Missile Range, but the program left there in 2006 to take advantage of expanded opportunities for testing at PMRF. In addition to intercepting airlaunched targets, the Army also can interoperate with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System to demonstrate an integrated missile defense capability.
“On this particular test, we passed a cue to an AEGIS ship that was participating in the test,” Lamb elaborated. “ By cue, I mean our radar acquired the incoming ballistic missile target and passed that track data to the Aegis BMD system. That enabled its SPY-1 radar to acquire, track and conduct a simulated engagement against that ballistic missile.”
THAAD faces five more flight tests in the next several years, the next of which is scheduled for September. During that test, the Army Test and Evaluation Command will assess the missile defense system’s performance to provide its stamp of approval to the program.
“When you come to one of these flight tests, you are intercepting a bullet with a bullet in space,” Lamb stated. “THAAD can intercept inside the atmosphere and outside the atmosphere.
It’s the only system out there that does that. When you go to a flight test, you are intercepting with very tight tolerances and you need to have high confidence that you have a solid, proven design.”
The Missile Defense Agency and its chief THAAD contractor, Lockheed Martin, have that confidence.
PIECES OF THAAD
The THAAD model is actually fully validated prior to a flight test, Tom McGrath, THAAD program manager at Lockheed Martin, told MSMF.
“We are unique,” McGrath declared. “When you look around, five for five is a pretty impressive capability to demonstrate. I don’t think anyone else has done that well. In our opinion, it’s nine for nine because it was just as complicated to make all of those missions happen successfully. We believe we have the right planning, procedures and processes that will keep us going forward on this successful path.
“As of flight nine, we are stressing the weapons system pretty well with our threats. They are quite complicated and they are starting to stress the edges of the specifications,” he added.
Each test adds a layer of complexity by introducing different attitudes and ranges and modifying the target slightly. Each test confirms that the piece of the weapons system have been working well together. Flight test 10, for example, will involve two interceptors launched against a single target threat. Next year, flight 12 will fly two interceptors against two incoming targets.
THAAD is made up of a launcher, eight missiles on the launcher, a fire control, and radar. Production started in December 2006 with Lockheed Martin building 48 missiles, six launchers and two fire control units. Raytheon is building the X-band radar units.
Lockheed Martin plans to start delivering production hardware for ground segments of the system within a year. The interceptor will follow in the next several years. The company also will go under contract for the next two fire units. The company, of course, depends on its THAAD teammates to produce a final product.
Raytheon is the largest of those teammates, fielding the radar out of its facilities in Woburn, Mass. Raytheon also has assisted in development of the fire control system and served as part of the weapons system organization and the test organization.
Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technology Corp. in Canoga Park, Calif., and Parajet of Sacramento, Calif., have been vital suppliers of key components of the system as well. Honeywell’s operations in Tampa, Fla., have provided the inertial measuring unit and the mission computer for THAAD, while BAE Systems in Nashua, N.H., produces the system seeker. Northrop Grumman Corp. also manufacturers an important sensor.
Across the team, most of the personnel are stationed with Lockheed Martin’s program headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., the site of the missile development. About half of the weapons systems personnel and some of the test personnel work out of the Lockheed Martin facility in Huntsville, Ala., where they provide the fire control, the launcher and integrated logistics support. The next largest contingent of personnel resides in Woburn with Raytheon.
“We are in production at a fairly low rate, but we are building hardware that will go into the field,” McGrath said. “At the end of May, we activated the first battery—Alpha Battery/4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment of the 11th Brigade of the 32nd Army Air Missile Defense Command out of Fort Lewis. We are approaching 90 soldiers who are actually training to field the equipment.”
Soldiers operated the THAAD system during the recent flight tests, as they have been doing for some time, McGrath emphasized. The tests are designed to maintain operational realism so that any kinks can be worked out as they arise.
So training on the pieces of the THAAD system and the overall program has become an important element of Lockheed Martin’s work. The contractor trains soldiers with the individual pieces of the launcher, the radar and the fire control, then adds collective training where all parts of the system are working together to provide a functional solution.
“Later next year, the soldiers should be ready to start deploying where the U.S. Army decides they should go. We are in an interesting phase right now. We are finishing up our flight test program and at the same time we are building the first production units and getting the Army trained and ready to accept the fielding,” McGrath commented.
LETHAL EVOLUTION
Development of the THAAD missile defense program began in the early 1990s, but its flight tests were failing by the end of the decade, recalled Lamb. The Department of Defense learned from those failures, and working with Lockheed Martin, eventually entered the next, and much more successful, stage of the program.
“THAAD, to be lethal, has to hit within very tight accuracies to destroy incoming reentry vehicles and to destroy their payloads. In 1999, the program successfully conducted two intercepts at White Sands Missile Range and the department decided to transit the program into its next stage of development,” Lamb remarked.
So between 1999 and 2005, program personnel redesigned some program components and really focused on the producability of the system—making it fiscally and realistically possible for the production and integration of its elements. THAAD would not return to flight tests until November 2005.
But once it returned, it did so with a vengeance. Lamb attributes the success of nine out of nine flight tests since 2005 to the highly effective infrastructure of the ground test equipment. The equipment permits the Army to thoroughly assess the performance of the system with a high degree of predictability, thereby creating a high degree of confidence of how the system will perform in a given flight test.
The activation of the first battery also serves as a significant milestone within the program. The Army will field the battery over the next year. As soldiers complete new equipment training for THAAD, they will enter collective training and then operational testing. The Army will conduct two operational tests—a force development and experimentation test and a limited user test—prior to subjecting THAAD to the scrutiny of a Material Release Review Board. The review board will review all of the data from all of the flight tests, the ground tests, and the operational tests to grant approval for formal release to Army forces.
Meanwhile, the Army plans to activate the second battery sometime in 2009. The service will build that out over the next year or two. Current plans for THAAD call for the eventual activation of four or five batteries with a basic missile load on each—yielding 96 intercepts apiece. The batteries have an anticipated lifecycle of 30 to 40 years.
“It’s a historic time for the program as we transition out of this first phase of development and start fielding to the Army,” Lamb concluded. “The flight test program is indicative of where we think that the design and the performance of the system are. It’s a great time to be on the program.” ♦