THAAD Tests Continue (avLeak)

[MKSheppard]

Industry, MDA Buoyed By Thaad Success
Aug 17, 2009

By Amy Butler

After a decade of lackluster testing and a major redesign, the Pentagon’s $15-billion Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system finally seems to be hitting its stride. This is more than 20 years after the Pentagon embarked on a land-mobile, theater-wide ballistic missile defense system.

Recent flight tests—including a challenging trial in March—have boosted developers’ confidence in the kinetic-kill system. Two different Thaad interceptors were launched against a single target, simulating an Army operational concept of dispatching a salvo of weapons to ensure a threat is destroyed. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and industry officials declared the flight test a success shortly after it was executed.

However, they disclosed to Aviation Week only recently that the results exceeded their expectations. Early reports from the Pentagon said the second interceptor was intentionally destroyed in flight after the first disabled the target in a hit-to-kill engagement.

“Actually, what happened on the flight test was that the first interceptor hit just as it was supposed to and the second interceptor looked at all of this debris and said, ‘OK, I’ve got another something that looks interesting,’ picked out another threat, and went out and killed it,” says Tom McGrath, Thaad vice president for prime contractor Lockheed Martin. “The second intercept hit another piece of hardware. We can’t talk about what that was, but it picked out what logically you would expect it to pick out and killed it.”

The two missiles were launched 12 sec. apart. The successful intercept of a fragment from the remaining debris is notable because the second interceptor was faced with what is called a “complex target scene.” This included the wreckage of the target shortly after the first high-speed collision. “We had it timed [so] that the second kill vehicle would see the intercept of the first and see the target scene,” says U.S. Army Col. William Lamb, the MDA’s Thaad project manager.

The engagement also demonstrates the ability of the mission computer on board the Thaad interceptor to adapt to a rapidly changing threat scene. “In real short time, it said, ‘Uh oh, that doesn’t look like what the radar told me it was going to be’—because now, of course, it was looking at a debris field instead of something that was not planned to be a debris field,” says McGrath. MDA officials declined to say whether the target deployed countermeasures. Of the six flight tests and successful intercepts since a missile redesign, five of the targets have been “foreign-acquired targets, against the real thing,” not a U.S.-designed threat emulator, says Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly. He is the MDA director who oversaw Thaad during the redesign period. “Many of those targets were shot from an asymmetric threat point of view of putting the missile on a barge [and setting] it off at sea,” he says.

Thaad was originally designed to act autonomously, which means its own AN/TPY-2, X-band radar would acquire a target, track it and cue the missile. Once launched and nearing its target, the interceptor’s infrared seeker would read the target scene. It would then sort out the input from the radar and from IR to discriminate the kill vehicle from countermeasures or clutter. Blending the two data sources helps the system discriminate actual threats from simulated ones.

“Things look different to an X-band sensor than they do to an IR sensor. Something that really has a lot of sharp edges . . . will look big and bright to an RF [sensor], but it might be real, real cold,” says McGrath. “So, it doesn’t look that way to an IR [sensor]. I like to think of this as our two-color approach to life.”

The flight trial, which took place at the Pacific test range, also included another first. A Navy Aegis-equipped ship cued Thaad with data on the target. This means the Aegis radar acquired the target first and redirected the Thaad radar to find the target. “We actually, on this flight, pointed it higher than we typically would for a search so that for sure Aegis would get that target—and it was closer to it—and we would not see it until after they cued us,” McGrath says. “We’ve worked with Aegis before ourselves, but the cues have never gone to the shooter. It has always gone to other ships.”

The target in this flight test was the longest-range threat used against Thaad to date.

Lamb says this trial is a “walk-up” to a complex scenario of two threats against two interceptors to come next March.

It will include two targets flying short-range ballistic missile trajectories and other simulated target missiles; this is designed to emulate a “mass raid.” An adversary launching tens of ballistic missiles at once is a likely wartime scenario. The adversary would do this in hopes that at least some of its warheads reach their targets.

One of the targets will actually be a medium-range missile, but it will be flown in a short-range trajectory, Lamb says. Medium-range target missiles (1,000-3,500 km./620-2,170 mi.) are expected in flight testing in 2011 and intermediate-range targets (2,500-5,000 km.) are expected in 2013, he says, when the test program will transition to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

Designed to intercept targets in the atmosphere and the lower edges of space, Thaad has demonstrated effective engagements in the exoatmosphere. Another trial in space is expected during Flight Test 13, which will include a long-range separating target with countermeasures. Thaad evaluations to date have been against short-range threats (see timeline above).

Since the interceptor redesign, Thaad has had relatively few intercept tests, and it still must prove its value against a wider range of threats, says former Pentagon chief tester Philip Coyle, who is now a senior adviser with the Center for Defense Information.

Despite a lack of data on Thaad’s performance against longer-range targets, the system had its first experience in the operational spotlight this spring as North Korea was preparing to test a space launch system. In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates mentioned Thaad in the midst of a briefing on budget decisions—including the F-22 and C-17 line closures—that rattled industry. Gates said the Pentagon “had the Thaad missiles in Hawaii, prepared to protect Hawaii” with a terminal-phase defense as North Korea readied a space booster allegedly based on its long-range Taepodong-2.

Though an attack was unlikely—and Thaad is an unproven defense against a long-range threat—Gates’s nod toward the program was notable.

He also announced this spring that he was boosting funding for Thaad by $350 million in the Fiscal 2010 request; this was one of the few programs to gain more support in the Pentagon budget while many were suffering major fiscal setbacks. About 55% of the money is outlined for procurement of Thaad hardware; the remainder is dedicated to research and development to integrate Thaad into the U.S.’s overall ballistic missile defense system.

The capability on alert in April was nascent. The system went active temporarily with a team of flight-testers (who were not active-duty soldiers) operating in Hawaii in support of Thaad’s evaluation program. Additionally, the fire control system is based on a Humvee at the test range; it is mounted on a 5-ton truck for production batteries. Lamb says the test configuration there is not representative of the production versions. “It is indicative of the capability, though.”

The Army officially activated its first Thaad battery with the 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment at Ft. Bliss, Tex., in May 2008. Each Thaad battery consists of the radar unit, fire control and communications, and three launchers, each capable of holding eight interceptors. The battery is staffed by 99 soldiers. This format could be reviewed if the MDA pursues a more capable Thaad booster with longer range (see p. 42). Coyle suggests this could be a Kinetic-Energy Interceptor “in disguise,” referring to the high-speed, land-mobile booster that was terminated by Gates in the Fiscal 2010 budget. The activation was ceremonial, as actual interceptors have not yet been delivered to the unit.

The Army, which will operate Thaad, will assess the battery for its readiness for war operations through the winter. This will include tests of tactics and procedures, crew drills and trials to assess maintenance and sustainment. Limited User Tests, an operational trial, will follow in the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2010, according to Lamb.

Lockheed Martin is on contract to deliver the second battery. McGrath says the radar is complete, the truck-mounted fire control systems have been delivered, and two of the three launchers were sent to the Army. The third is expected in the fall; it will go to the second battery.

Some of the additional funding requested in Fiscal 2010 is for the purchase of more interceptors. Earlier, the force structure was expected to be four batteries with 98 interceptors distributed among them. The extra funds take the interceptor count up to 289, and two additional batteries. Interceptors from the first production lot of 48 will begin shipping from Lockheed Martin’s Troy, Ala., facility during the next two months, McGrath says. The flight-test vehicles also were manufactured at this plant. Initially, the production rate will be one per month, and that will eventually double. “The rate we are building at is not an optimal rate,” McGrath says. “Four is the lowest rate you ought to be at to be pretty affordable.” Lamb says he may use one of the first production interceptors during the 12th flight test, which will simulate the mass raid.

Lamb says he is satisfied with the stand-up of the production line. One outstanding issue is the qualification of an optical block for production. This piece of equipment inhibits light from penetrating the booster ignition motor. (The ignition motor chain is triggered by light.) This is a relatively small challenge compared with previous program hurdles.

The pause in Thaad flight testing from 1999-2005 was largely due to the need to redesign the interceptor, says MDA Director O’Reilly. The goal was to improve reliability. “After having seven failures, we were highly motivated,” he notes. “I believe all seven were related to quality control, and so we went back and did an analysis with Lockheed and others on the history of missiles, and it turns out that by far the greatest cause of reliability failures on a missile has to do with cables and connectors.”

During a Mar. 17 flight trial, the second of two Thaad interceptors, launched 12 sec. after the first, captures a series of images using its infrared seeker. At left, in the first two photos, the seeker is observing the first interceptor (top) closing in on the short-range target (bottom). The seeker on Interceptor 2 then captures the actual collision of Interceptor 1 and the target (third photo). The next two images show the wreckage of the engagement. Finally, the seeker on Interceptor 2 is viewing a large piece of debris just before impacting it. These are low-resolution images provided at Aviation Week’s request; high-resolution versions were not declassified.Credit: LOCKHEED MARTIN
The team redesigned the interceptor to form fittings that O’Reilly says “click together like Legos,” eliminating the need for traditional cables. Also, 21 blind assembly steps—which required workers to connect parts without seeing the connections—were taken out of the process.

After North Korea’s last ballistic missile test on July 4, Japan declared publicly that it was considering a Thaad purchase to add an extra layer to its existing Patriot PAC-3 and Aegis/SM-3 defenses. The United Arab Emirates also requested the system. Lamb says he hopes for a formal letter of offer and acceptance to take place within the next year.

[Simon_Jester]

What we really need to do here is rig a single-blind test of the system: inform the defenders that missiles will be fired from somewhere in a large known region at an unknown time, find some portable launchers somewhere in the world, and go to town. See how much not knowing approximately when and where the launch will occur degrades the system's effectiveness.

Has this been done?

[Questor]

What we really need to do here is rig a single-blind test of the system: inform the defenders that missiles will be fired from somewhere in a large known region at an unknown time, find some portable launchers somewhere in the world, and go to town. See how much not knowing approximately when and where the launch will occur degrades the system's effectiveness.

Has this been done?

I would suspect that that kind of thing is only done after you make sure the system works in controlled circumstances.

I know that whenever we deploy a new piece of technology, we first test it in a lab, so that we can determine if it lives up to basic performance guidelines. One thing we like to test for is the fact that each piece works.

After that, you do real world testing.

It seems like the tests are getting progressively more "real world" and complex.

[Scottish Ninja]

I did some quick and dirty math - 55% of 350m is about 200m, and for that cost they're adding 200 interceptors, which comes out to be about a million bucks a pop. How does that compare to the cost of an IRBM?

[Questor]

I did some quick and dirty math - 55% of 350m is about 200m, and for that cost they're adding 200 interceptors, which comes out to be about a million bucks a pop. How does that compare to the cost of an IRBM?

How is that relevant? Anyhoo, I suspect the comparison is favorable. The cost of the Thor, the first IRBM, was 2/3 of that in 1955. That was the only missile I could find a cost for, but I didn't look long, either.

The real cost comparison should probably be what is the cost of letting an IRBM hit? Depending on the IRBM's payload, that could easily run into the multi-millions. Hell, a platoon of M1A2s costs over $16 Mn, not counting the personnel.

[Scottish Ninja]

I'm referring to the potential situation of an arms race - if the interceptors needed to destroy a given number of ballistic missiles are significantly cheaper than the missiles themselves, the cost of that missile force will quickly become unsustainable. If that means a potential enemy stops building ballistic missiles entirely, then the interceptors have done their job: they've ended the threat without having to fire a shot.

Anyway, that cost for the Thor works out to be a bit over $4m in 2007 dollars, using the first converter I could find on Google.

[Questor]

I'm referring to the potential situation of an arms race - if the interceptors needed to destroy a given number of ballistic missiles are significantly cheaper than the missiles themselves, the cost of that missile force will quickly become unsustainable. If that means a potential enemy stops building ballistic missiles entirely, then the interceptors have done their job: they've ended the threat without having to fire a shot.

You're referring to virtual attrition. You have a point, but you have to remember that you are not spending $400m to destroy the interceptors from a THAAD battalion (necessarily), you are spending $400m to destroy the target. If the target is worth $400m to destroy, then I will still keep the missiles around, even knowing that I could lose 96% of them short of the target. This is one of those places where risk analysis can get really complicated and counter intuitive.

Of course, if we're talking past each other, which is always possible when I'm hungry, you have my apologies.

[PeZook]

Thing is, it's not a dollar-to-dollar analysis.

For example: A city is worth untold billions of dollars to the defender. Does this mean the attacker can afford to spend these untold billions on destroying the city? It's entirely possible that deploying even weak defences throughout the country will make it impossible for the enemy to deploy enough missiles to destroy all his desired targets, even if each site individually costs more than the amount of missiles required to defeat it.

As for military assets, you have to factor in things like the stuff they're expected to killfuck. An M1A2 platoon is only worth 16 million, but by operating against enemy tanks, it's likely to destroy equipment worth much more, therefore spending a few million more to defend them might pay off in the damage they cause (and help cause by, for example, supporting a breakthrough).

And add to this the fact that the US can just plain afford to outspend most enemies.

[Winston Blake]

However, they disclosed to Aviation Week only recently that the results exceeded their expectations.

The thing about team projects is that when something unexpectedly bad goes wrong in a test, everyone chalks it up to bad luck, but when something unexpectedly good happens, they all slap each other on the back and call it a job well done. There's a difference between being able to do something, and being able to do it reliably. They should probably have stored away this cool little incident as ammunition for defending their project against future cancellation. OTOH, maybe they're playing it up precisely because they need to justify their program NOW.

[Questor]

Thing is, it's not a dollar-to-dollar analysis.

That's actually what I was trying to get at.

[PeZook]

The thing about team projects is that when something unexpectedly bad goes wrong in a test, everyone chalks it up to bad luck, but when something unexpectedly good happens, they all slap each other on the back and call it a job well done.

That's the first time I heard that engineers shrug and move on after a test fails. I guess they keep firing the missiles hoping that THIS TIME the broken system will work just fine?

They redesigned the damn missile at least once already, and the software and hardware they designed exceeded expectations during a test. How is that not a cause for "job well done"? Was the system made by God, so that its performance is not something to congratulate the engineers about?

They said in the same press release they'll continue testing THAAD, so it's not like they think it's already perfect.

[Winston Blake]

That's the first time I heard that engineers shrug and move on after a test fails. I guess they keep firing the missiles hoping that THIS TIME the broken system will work just fine?

I didn't say they shrug and move on. I'm just saying they wouldn't have sent out a press release if it unexpectedly failed.

They redesigned the damn missile at least once already, and the software and hardware they designed exceeded expectations during a test. How is that not a cause for "job well done"? Was the system made by God, so that its performance is not something to congratulate the engineers about?

They said in the same press release they'll continue testing THAAD, so it's not like they think it's already perfect.

It's great that it managed to kill the other fragment, don't get me wrong. However you can't rigorously call it a 'THAAD success' if it's a one-off event. Its 'demonstrated performance' in this case may well be an act of God. A successful incident is great, but I feel this article blurs that with a successful capability, if you get what I mean.

Really though, the whole thing should be absolutely secret. Nobody except the military and government should know the results of any BMD tests until after the system is complete.

[Sea Skimmer]

The thing about team projects is that when something unexpectedly bad goes wrong in a test, everyone chalks it up to bad luck, but when something unexpectedly good happens, they all slap each other on the back and call it a job well done. There's a difference between being able to do something, and being able to do it reliably. They should probably have stored away this cool little incident as ammunition for defending their project against future cancellation. OTOH, maybe they're playing it up precisely because they need to justify their program NOW.

Not an issue at ALL. THAAD in fact recently got a budget boost for increased production of warshot missiles, and the first operational firing battery formed three years ahead of schedule. So suffice to say Congress likes this program, and it is second only to the much smaller PAC-3 missile in program maturity as far as US ABM weapons go. As the formation of actual firing batteries indicates, the weapon is reliable enough to be considered operational. Testing will go on, but that’s always the case. We still test new versions of Sidewinder after all and its development began back in 1946.

[PeZook]

I didn't say they shrug and move on. I'm just saying they wouldn't have sent out a press release if it unexpectedly failed.

No, you wrote:

The thing about team projects is that when something unexpectedly bad goes wrong in a test, everyone chalks it up to bad luck, but when something unexpectedly good happens, they all slap each other on the back and call it a job well done.

Not "if it went bad they wouldn't brag about it".

If it went bad, they'd meticulously collect the debris and spend a crapload of time going over the flight data, assuming they screwed up somewhere, not "chalk it up to bad luck".

For the same reason, when a system exceeds expectation, the engineers are satisfied, because they designed it.

It's great that it managed to kill the other fragment, don't get me wrong. However you can't rigorously call it a 'THAAD success' if it's a one-off event. Its 'demonstrated performance' in this case may well be an act of God. A successful incident is great, but I feel this article blurs that with a successful capability, if you get what I mean.

It's a success because it accomplished the test goals. Further tests are planned that will verify that specific capability.

It's not like the capability wasn't created by the engineers, it's just that this test wasn't supposed to verify it. It's strong evidence, however, that it already works, which is always satisfying to a designer.

Really though, the whole thing should be absolutely secret. Nobody except the military and government should know the results of any BMD tests until after the system is complete.

Why? It's not like Russia can't monitor the tests and find out about the results.

[Winston Blake]

I didn't say they shrug and move on. I'm just saying they wouldn't have sent out a press release if it unexpectedly failed.

No, you wrote:

The thing about team projects is that when something unexpectedly bad goes wrong in a test, everyone chalks it up to bad luck, but when something unexpectedly good happens, they all slap each other on the back and call it a job well done.

Not "if it went bad they wouldn't brag about it".

If it went bad, they'd meticulously collect the debris and spend a crapload of time going over the flight data, assuming they screwed up somewhere, not "chalk it up to bad luck".

For the same reason, when a system exceeds expectation, the engineers are satisfied, because they designed it.

I think we're talking past each other, and you're taking this way too seriously. My first post said

Good luck -> people usually take credit for it
Bad luck -> people usually don't take credit for it

The second post was the same thing, rephrased. I don't understand your vehement objections.

It's great that it managed to kill the other fragment, don't get me wrong. However you can't rigorously call it a 'THAAD success' if it's a one-off event. Its 'demonstrated performance' in this case may well be an act of God. A successful incident is great, but I feel this article blurs that with a successful capability, if you get what I mean.

It's a success because it accomplished the test goals. Further tests are planned that will verify that specific capability.

It's not like the capability wasn't created by the engineers, it's just that this test wasn't supposed to verify it. It's strong evidence, however, that it already works, which is always satisfying to a designer.

It's evidence, but I really don't think it's strong evidence. The article certainly gives the impression that it's strong evidence, but from a conservative engineering point of view, it's just one test. If I were them I would have waited until I had some proof - something solid.

Really though, the whole thing should be absolutely secret. Nobody except the military and government should know the results of any BMD tests until after the system is complete.

Why? It's not like Russia can't monitor the tests and find out about the results.

Call me an inherently conservative person. For example, if the press release hadn't said that the extra success was unexpected, then potential enemies would be left guessing about whether it was intended all along.