Multiple Kill Missile Defense

Many-on-Many Strategy Would Permit Interceptors to Destroy Multiple Threats

by Marty Kauchak, MSMF Editor

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is embarked on a bold, well-charted strategy to transform single interceptor missiles from a single-kill vehicle capacity to one with multiple kill vehicles (MKV). Deploying an interceptor with multiple kill vehicles will significantly change the calculus of the defending force, as the many-on-many strategy would permit the kill vehicles to destroy multiple threat objects within a threat cluster.

Two industry teams are pursuing parallel MKV strategies aimed at enabling MDA to field this capability to the warfighter as early as late 2017 or early 2018, based on the outcome of rigorous future tests with increasingly complex objectives. The MKV program has its underpinning in an earlier effort to study how kill vehicles could be miniaturized. “The idea was the smaller the size of the kill vehicle, the more that we might have available,” recalled Richard Matlock, program director, MKV program office, MDA. The effort, known as the miniature kill vehicle program, was guided by Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.

The current MDA program vision for MKV has a vehicle payload countering complex ballistic missile threats during their midcourse phase of flight with multiple kill vehicles launched from a single interceptor missile. The MKV concept is eyed for three mid-course interceptor elements: ground-based midcourse defense (GMD), kinetic energy interceptors and the Aegis ballistic missile defense program’s Standard Missile (SM)-3 element.

From a contractual perspective, the MKV effort is in the multiple kill vehicle capability development block. On-going ballistic missile defense system-level work will establish overarching system requirements that will be sent to the MKV-L (Lockheed Martin Space Systems) and -R (Raytheon Missile Systems) teams during the next nine to 10 months to guide their future efforts. The MKV program has projected funding of $3.3 billion for fiscal years 2008–13. As this issue was going to press, the FY09 DoD authorization bill reduced this funding by $50 million.

PARALLEL PATHS

MDA is encouraging the parallel-path development of the MKV concept, Matlock said, “since it is something that we have not attempted in the agency in the past. There is some functionality that we have to prove before we’re ready to deploy the system.” In 2004, Lockheed Martin was picked to further develop the technology for its miniature kill vehicle concept. The scope of the program rapidly evolved. “We decided in 2006 that we needed to look at bringing multiple kill vehicles to fruition. So one of the contracts that we looked at was evolving this miniature kill vehicle contract that we had with Lockheed Martin into a multiple kill vehicle contract [MKV-L],” said Matlock.

The MKV-L payload consists of a carrier vehicle (CV), or mothership, for a second component— multiple kill vehicles and a payload adapter. The CV’s other subcomponents include a propulsion system that will maneuver it onto the target’s trajectory and a long-range, frontmounted acquisition sensor.

The sensor will allow the CV to “see the target cluster at hundreds of kilometers and sort though that target cluster based on information it gets transmitted to it not only from the C2BMC [command and control, battle management and communications] elements on the ground, but also from the sensor,” remarked Matlock. After objects have been designated as hostile, the CV will dispense the kill vehicles away from the vehicle toward targets.

By retaining command and control and other functionality onboard the CV, the kill vehicles will be smaller, more numerous and able to communicate with the CV at all times.

With the available data, the CV prioritizes and reassigns the kill vehicles to engage the most lethal object. “It acts as the quarterback,” said Rick Reginato, program director, MKV-L, Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

The kill vehicles can also acquire the target, but are flying “blind” for most of their deployment. Toward the end of the engagement, “the carrier vehicle then says, ‘When you open up your eyes, you are now going to see this target.’ The kill vehicle then diverts over and takes out the target the carrier vehicle directed it to,” he added.

MKV-L industry partner BAE Electronics and Integrated Solutions has built two telescopes for integration into the CV’s sensor’s focal point array. A second industry team member is Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne, for propulsion. “As we continue to move down the path to our system requirements review, we’ll be collecting other key industry partners for the computer, the inertial measurement unit and for the communications system,” Reginato emphasized.

Raytheon’s parallel effort, MKV-R, is gaining momentum. In October, DoD announced that MDA awarded Raytheon an approximate $442 million contract for development and test of its Ballistic Missile Defense System MKV Payload System. The work is expected to be completed by December 2011 under a sole source contract award.

The Raytheon team is pursuing a different strategy, centered on moving the functionality found in the MKV-L CV into the kill vehicles for a team-like capability. One kill vehicle will be initially selected to manage the engagement. “If he kills his target or something malfunctions, then that engagement management functionality is shifted around the team,” Matlock said.

OVERCOMING RISKS

There are significant technology risks, however, involved with pursuing the MKV strategy. At the top of MDA’s menu of challenges is how either the MKV-L CV or deployed MKV-R kill vehicle manages the engagement with myriad data about the threat cluster. The government-industry team has a three-step approach to mitigate this risk.

MDA initially will validate high-fidelity, digital simulations that demonstrate the software with the algorithms that will guide the kill vehicles. For its part, the MVR-L team in May demonstrated the first of its engagement battle management algorithms in a simulation environment.

“The next version of that software comes out in spring 2009, and we will be going through another demonstration of that,” said Reginato.

Team Raytheon plans soon to complete, internal to the company, a digital demonstration of its engagement management capability. “We have developed our initial engagement manager concept and we have developed the algorithms, put those in our simulation, and plan to do a demonstration of that in fourth quarter of this year,” said Kathrin Kjos, program director, MKV-R, Raytheon Missile Systems. “We’ll move that into a more common environment and do that in second quarter 2009.”

Assuming the teams’ simulations are successful, “the next step is to prove that you can take those algorithms and software, and put it on a real mission computer—one that would be carried on a carrier vehicle or kill vehicle, and that you can actually execute those algorithms and instructions real-time on that computer—on the chip or set of chips that will go on the carrier vehicle,” said Matlock.

The MKV program’s third step will determine whether software applications and their algorithms can consistently operate in real-time, in a hardware-in-the-loop application with sensors processing information on different sets of targets and different sets of initial conditions. Both industry teams are addressing this functionality substep.

In an effort to field the MKV concept to the warfighter sooner, MDA is minimizing technical risk through another strategy involving the two payload providers, who are encouraged to suggest solutions that use existing technology. Both industry teams have told MDA that in their evolving concepts there are existing technologies in SM-3 and other interceptors in terms of sensors, guidance units and processors, rocket propulsion systems and other sub-components they can apply.

One set of competencies and resources gained through common technologies across the ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) weapons systems can be gleaned from Raytheon’s product portfolio. The company builds the SM-3 and the exoatmospheric kill vehicle (EKV), the interceptor element of the ground-based interceptor. “We build kill vehicles. We have a lot of talent; we’ve made a lot of investments in facilities and factories,” noted Kjos.

Raytheon is expecting to reap long-term efficiencies from the continued popularity and evolution of SM-3 and other programs. “A lot of what we do for MKV applies to unitary and vice versa,” she said.

With one eye on the future, Raytheon has organized itself along the lines of MDA, as it includes all vehicles, unitary and multiple, in the same business area. This effort strives to achieve commonality in mission assurance, cost and other functions. “Another reason we are doing that is to have more than one supplier in many areas. We have done a lot of work with small business,” Kjos said.

FOCAL PLANE ARRAY

A further challenge that is beyond the technology base of fielded BMDS interceptors is providing the focal plane array for the long-range acquisition sensor. The government-industry team is vigorously pursuing a solution in this area.

One illustrative BMDS weapon system, the SM-3, has a focal plane that provides the capability to sense infrared information in two distinct wave bands, improving the identification of multiple, closely spaced objects. “The idea is the more wave bands you have, the more properties you can understand about the target. By having two wave bands we can understand the temperature of the target. So we have two colors in SM-3 in a format that is 256 pixels by 256 pixels,” Matlock said.

As operators seek to increasingly acquire targets in the space domain at longer ranges, MDA wants the same two-color focal plane array but at a larger format. “So we’re going to take the next step up and make it four times as big, which is 512 pixels by 512 pixels. That sort of thing has not been produced yet. That is our one technology area that we are investing a lot of money in this year. We have two of the top technology vendors in this nation, DRS Technologies and Raytheon Vision Systems, who build focal plane arrays. We have both of those teams on the job of building the 512 by 512,” said Matlock.

Raytheon’s telescope for its sensor package will be delivered later this year. The sub-system has been the focus of that team’s special attention to radiation-hardened design, affordability and several software algorithms that increase detection range using the same size aperture as on fielded systems. “We’re talking about EKV-like performance out of a sensor the size of an SM-3’s. We’re doing this with better design and better algorithms,” emphasized Kjos.

MDA expects to have the new arrays completed by the end of this year. The systems will be integrated onboard an MDA widearea sensor platform testbed aircraft for follow-on experimentation in engagement management functionality and other missions in 2009.

FUTURE MILESTONES

The MKV program has other significant tests and program milestones on its horizon.

This Fall, MDA expects to conduct a hover test for the MKV-L CV at the National Hover Test Facility, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Twelve inert kill vehicles—some mass mock-ups, the others volume mock-ups—will be strapped to the CV during the test, according to Matlock. “We are going to demonstrate that that carrier vehicle can carry those kill vehicles and maneuver inside that hangar while it is watching a target outside of the hangar. So we are proving that the whole dynamics of the carrier vehicle with its attached kill vehicles is achievable.”

Early flight testing in the current program is planned for 2012, and the tests will help determine the environment for MKV operations. MDA plans to fly a GMD interceptor with an electronic mass mock-up of the MKV-L CV and kill vehicles, or the Raytheon set of kill vehicles. This program milestone will help the agency better understand what happens, in terms of vibration and other in-flight phenomena, when a MKV payload is placed on a ground-based interceptor. “We’ll follow that in 2013–2014 with a whole series of tests with increasingly more complex objectives of the complete set of kill vehicles, or the carrier vehicle and kill vehicles. We plan to complete those tests in late 2017 or early 2018, which would mean that we could look at the possibility of getting this to the warfighter in that timeframe,” Matlock said. ♦