Unproven BMD scores success...

[MKSheppard]

Link

THAAD shoots down missile from C-17
The Associated Press

KAPAA, Hawaii — The U.S. military’s ground-based missile defense system destroyed a missile launched from an airplane Wednesday in the first successful test of the system’s ability to destroy a separating target.

The interceptor missile launched off Kauai had to differentiate between the warhead and the body of the missile before destroying it above the Pacific Ocean, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

This was the fifth successful intercept in five attempts since 2005 for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, the agency said. Another test in September 2006 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., was not completed due to a malfunction of the target missile, and no intercept was attempted.

The system used a mobile launcher at Kauai’s Pacific Missile Range Facility to shoot down a target representing a threat ballistic missile, said Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering.

The threat missile was launched from an Air Force C-17 flying over the Pacific Ocean. The interceptor missile was fired six minutes later.

Like the Patriot anti-missile defenses, THAAD is designed to knock out ballistic missiles in their final minute of flight.

Unlike the Patriot system, however, it is designed to intercept targets at higher altitudes, which enables it to defend a larger area.

This was the 35th successful test in 43 attempts in the atmosphere and in space since 2001, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. Since September 2005, the military has successfully completed 29 of 30 attempts.

THAAD is one of two missile defense systems being tested at the Navy’s Hawaii missile range.

The sea-based Aegis system completed its own successful test June 5.

Link

Kauai missile test deemed success as target is destroyed in 6 minutes


By Diana Leone
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

LIHU'E, Kaua'i — An interceptor missile launched from Kaua'i hit its target yesterday in the first such test in which a target was dropped from an airplane.



A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile was fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands to intercept a target launched from an Air Force C-17 aircraft at 4:16 p.m., the U.S. Missile Defense Agency reported.

The THAAD missile hit its target six minutes later.

"It was an amazing feat," said Col. William Lamb, THAAD project manager for the Missile Defense Agency.

The target had a dummy warhead that separated from its propellant base — another first for the testing program — which increased the challenge for the interceptor to detect and "kill" the correct piece of the target, Lamb said.

Lamb praised the team of Army soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, who operated the ground-based launcher that fired the THAAD missile, as well as the radar and command equipment that helped detect and track the target.

The soldiers didn't know when the target would be launched and manually engaged the target, which "brought increased operational realism" to the test, the agency release said.

"The test went very well," Lamb said.

Meanwhile, the Navy cruiser USS Lake Erie received a tracking cue from the THAAD system, and used its advanced SPY-1 radar to track the target missile and conduct a simulated firing of its onboard Standard Missile-3 interceptor missile.

The sharing of data between the Army and Navy is one reason the Pacific Missile Range Facility is such a good location for missile defense tests, Lamb said.

Last month, Fort Bliss became home to the country's first THAAD unit, Missile Defense Agency spokeswoman Pam Rogers said. Up to three more 100-soldier missile batteries could eventually join the unit, she said.

Lockheed Martin, the main contractor to the Missile Defense Agency for the THAAD program, expects to deliver 48 missiles, six launchers and two fire control and communication units to Fort Bliss under a $619 million production contract, the company said in a release.

The Bethesda, Md., company has developed and tested the THAAD anti-ballistic missiles since receiving a $4 billion contract in 2000, said company spokesman Marcello Bruni, who was among dozens of Lockheed employees on Kaua'i for yesterday's test.

Lockheed Martin also has 33 employees stationed at Kaua'i's Pacific Missile Range Facility.

Yesterday's test was the 35th successful hit-to-kill intercept out of 43 attempts in the atmosphere and in space since 2001, and was the 29th of 30 successful tests conducted since September 2005, the Missile Defense Agency said in a release.

THAAD missiles have been tested in the 2 million-square-mile Pacific Missile Range Facility four times since April 2007, Lamb said. A fifth test is expected in the fall.

Each major test like this one brings a one-time economic impact to Kaua'i of several million dollars, said Tom Clement, Pacific Missile Range Facility spokesman.

[Admiral Valdemar]

This will be handy against those deep-theatre attack C-17 squadrons.

Cool stuff. Nice to see the system can work in a more hands on scenario and not something clinically made to favour best case instances.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

That's a 96.67% interception rate in tests so far--using just one missile. The normal interception plan is to look, shoot two, look, shoot two more. Each missile has a 96.67% chance of intercepting the target. I think it's safe to say that if we can just install four missiles for every armed ICBM/SLBM warhead on the planet outside of our own arsenals, which would require less than 12,000 missiles at present, a similar number to the 1960s missile defence proposals (14,400 Nike-Zeus, 12,000 Nike-Hercules installed and operational at any one time), in fact less than half as much, that the threat by ballistic missiles to the United States would simply cease to exist.

[Admiral Valdemar]

We still need Nike-Zeus and Herc. You can never have enough nuclear tipped defence missiles.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

We still need Nike-Zeus and Herc. You can never have enough nuclear tipped defence missiles.

Well, one thing I'd like to see happen is a joint US-Russian programme to deploy a couple FOBS-type nuclear warheads on very large booster rockets which contain their own interception rockets as part of the FOBs bus. Exception it's geared for interception of incoming asteroids and comets--put a 150 MT thermonuclear warhead (or five or six) into the incoming body on even just a few hours' notice.

Now, certainly that will fragment the body, but that's okay, because then we could deploy several hundred SPARTAN-type ABM missiles with 5 MT neutron warheads to intercept the fragments. Any smaller fragments that got through can be taken out by THAAD type systems in the lower atmosphere.

We can name the command center "Planet Control" and adopt the insignia of Pournelle's CoDominion for the joint service officers, terrifying nationalists and conspiracy theorists everywhere...

[Adrian Laguna]

We can name the command center "Planet Control" and adopt the insignia of Pournelle's CoDominion for the joint service officers, terrifying nationalists and conspiracy theorists everywhere...

Doing something that is, in the end, insubstantial, merely for the sake of scaring the absolute shit of conspiracy theorists is definitely something I can get behind.

[Sea Skimmer]

A couple Saturn Vs kept on the launch pad would be more practical and more effective then FOBS for anti asteroid defence. The biggest advantage being that we could constantly replace the warheads to ensure the damn things actually work when needed. The warhead could be in the 300-500 megaton class while still retaining kinetic performance to reach moon orbit.

As for nuclear air defence, Nike isn’t nearly enough, I demand the development of the ground launched AMRAAM into a nuclear weapon using the proposed 105mm nuclear shell as a warhead. The weight matches closely and AMRAAM diameter is more then sufficient for the job. 20 ton yield ensures we can use this weapon even after the enemy bomber or missile has gone feet dry.

NIke Hurk BTW MUST be fielded with its proposed air to air cluster bomb warhead alongside the nukes. I can’t think of any possible better idea then spreading bomblet duds over tens of square miles instead of mere thousands of square yards.

[Kanastrous]

Did the Saturn V design lend itself to weeks or months of launch-ready maintenance...?

Maybe something in the same throw class. But probably not a Saturn.

IIRC Secretary McNamara saw to it that all the tooling you need to manufacture Saturn rockets was destroyed, anyway.

[K. A. Pital]

1st generation superheavy lifters are excessively expensive IIRC. Stuff like Energia or the Delta IV heavy configuration are far more modern, effective.

Why would you need obsolete heavy rockets anyway, if you could do it with modern ones?

[Kanastrous]

I can't speak for Sea Skimmer, but I'll admit to a sort of romantic attachment to the Saturn V.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Did the Saturn V design lend itself to weeks or months of launch-ready maintenance...?

Maybe something in the same throw class. But probably not a Saturn.

IIRC Secretary McNamara saw to it that all the tooling you need to manufacture Saturn rockets was destroyed, anyway.

There must be something said about that man to have gone around on a "destroy the factories" crusade.

[Kanastrous]

Did the Saturn V design lend itself to weeks or months of launch-ready maintenance...?

Maybe something in the same throw class. But probably not a Saturn.

IIRC Secretary McNamara saw to it that all the tooling you need to manufacture Saturn rockets was destroyed, anyway.

There must be something said about that man to have gone around on a "destroy the factories" crusade.

Yeah.

He had his pet projects, and any competitor for funding got razed, burned, and sowed with salt.

[Kane Starkiller]

What is the speed of test missile compared to the velocity of the incoming ICBM warhead?

[Vympel]

THAAD has no capability against ICBM warheads. It's purely for less long-ranged targets.

[Stuart]

What is the speed of test missile compared to the velocity of the incoming ICBM warhead?

Doesn't matter; that's not the aspect being tested. When one's testing a system like this, the test is set up around the specific aspect being examined and we only test that specific aspect. One at a time, otherwise data processing becomes impossible. That's just straight scientific ppractice, only change one variable at a time.

We've already tested THAAD and Standard against ICBM-speed targets with success so that side of things is a done deal.

If I had to guess at the effect of a C-17 and an ICBM-speed warhead seperating, I would guess that it would be much easier than this test because of the speed differential. It's easier to filter out an object doing 17,000 miles per hour from one doing 500 mph than it is to separate one doing 600 mph for one doing 500 mph. From a discrimination point of view, there is no difference is separating a target doing 17,000 mph from one doing 16,900 mph than there is separating the 600mph target from the 500mph target; in this context, its the absolute speed that would matter.

However, speed is not the issue here in another respect as well. The discrimination is not done by speed but by target motion analysis. The dropped warhead doesn't fly the same way as the carrier and the missile is designed to detect the difference and act upon that difference. Again, speed is irrelevent to that, its how the target flies that is critical.

It's TMA that killed off things like chaff and flares. They just don't fly right and a missile can pick that up and use it to filter them out.

Finally, THAAD was not designed to take down ICBMs; its intended for what its name suggests, Theater defense.

[Kane Starkiller]

Thanks for the reply. I knew that THAAD is not intended as anti ICBM weapon however I was under impression it would be used as a last ditch effort to take down any warheads that passed through other layers of defense so that's I was wondering whether it could do it.

[Stuart]

Thanks for the reply. I knew that THAAD is not intended as anti ICBM weapon however I was under impression it would be used as a last ditch effort to take down any warheads that passed through other layers of defense so that's I was wondering whether it could do it.

In a way, this test relates to that. What was being examined was the ability of the target filtering system to distinguise a warhead separating from a carrier bus. If we're using THAAD as a last-ditch defense weapon, that capability would be very useful. In some ways, its the reverse of the normal ABM system; when hitting MRVs and MIRVs the ideal is to hit the bus before it starts to discharge warheads and this get the whole lot in one go. That we can do these days. However, in this last-ditch role, we don't want to hit the bus because its already shed its warheads and isn't a threat any more. So, we want to pick up the discharged warheads. Of course, if the bus doesn't burn up on renetry promptly, we might have to clobber it anyway but that's another matter.

[Sea Skimmer]

1st generation superheavy lifters are excessively expensive IIRC. Stuff like Energia or the Delta IV heavy configuration are far more modern, effective.

Why would you need obsolete heavy rockets anyway, if you could do it with modern ones?

I was just using Saturn V as an example of the scale system we’d want, no modern rocket actually in production matches its throw weight and we’d probably have to just build a new rocket. Ideally every five years or so we’d rotate the booster being kept on alert for asteroid defence, and then sell it to be expended as a commercial booster. The nuclear payload and guidance system would then be shifted to a brand new booster. I don't think we can get ICBM 20 year shelf lives out of such large boosters.

Energia comes close to Saturn V performance, but its been a dead program for over 15 years now, theoretical upgrades of Delta IV could also come close, but the versions around right now have less then half the throw weight. It would all depend on how big a nuke we want to use.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I take it the heavy lift Ariane 5s wouldn't be an option then.

[Medic]

Thanks for the reply. I knew that THAAD is not intended as anti ICBM weapon however I was under impression it would be used as a last ditch effort to take down any warheads that passed through other layers of defense so that's I was wondering whether it could do it.

In a way, this test relates to that. What was being examined was the ability of the target filtering system to distinguise a warhead separating from a carrier bus. If we're using THAAD as a last-ditch defense weapon, that capability would be very useful. In some ways, its the reverse of the normal ABM system; when hitting MRVs and MIRVs the ideal is to hit the bus before it starts to discharge warheads and this get the whole lot in one go. That we can do these days. However, in this last-ditch role, we don't want to hit the bus because its already shed its warheads and isn't a threat any more. So, we want to pick up the discharged warheads. Of course, if the bus doesn't burn up on re-entry promptly, we might have to clobber it anyway but that's another matter.

Enter the MKV program then. (multiple-kill vehicle -- replaces a single kinetic energy interceptor with several smaller ones giving you volume-kill capability)

I didn't follow-up on some House Democrats' desire to shift funding away from some elements of ABM (GBI and MKV most notably IIRC) and into others that in their minds showed more promise (SM-3 and THAAD) so I don't know for a fact that that element of the MDA is threatened but damnit if that isn't Congress' most infuriating habit. A program isn't liked or progressing because of any number of real (or imagined) technical OR political reasons, so funding's cut and re-directed elsewhere. Now you have a positive-feedback loop where further progress becomes -- potentially -- exponentially unlikely because the money simply isn't there and milestones are erased or simplified and testing becomes less realistic for the SOLE purpose of demonstrating success in the program and this is further used to score political points, claiming the program's testing is "rigged" or "unrealistic" and "slow." /rant

I do like this tidbit though from the FY09 funding .pdf file @ www.mda.mil:

Space Sensor Program – STSS. We are developing the STSS because terrestrial-based sensor systems have inherent limitations--in particular, their inability to acquire and track missiles around the curvature of the earth. STSS is intended to provide a persistent identification and global tracking and discrimination capability that would significantly increase the effectiveness of the BMDS. The system is designed to both support current ESGs and enable new ESGs. //in other words, it's envisioned the information from launch can give us a good clue as to the size of the missile and perhaps it's trajectory as well and allow as close as is possible a simultaneous launch of an appropriate interceptor The sensors on the STSS satellites are intended to provide fire control data to allow engagements of threat RVs and, when combined with radar data, will provide information that enable the discrimination of countermeasures. In FY 07 and FY 08, the program has been focused on the delivery of two STSS Demonstration Satellites with a common ground station to demonstrate, in FY 09, key functions of the STSS system. The Demonstration Satellites are currently scheduled for launch in late FY 08. Once launched, the plan is to use dedicated targets as well as Targets of Opportunity to demonstrate the capability of the system to acquire, track, discriminate and report ballistic missile and interceptor events from lift-off through midcourse to reentry. //in other words, when Iran, the Norks, ChiComs or whoever test-fires a ballistic missile, they give us a very realistic and unprompted exercise with real-world information on actual, potential real-world threats, not a missile slung off a C-17 over the Pacific This is a good thing Using the knowledge gained from the Demonstration Satellites, we plan to consider an initial space sensor constellation.

*ESG = engagement sequence group in MDA parlance -- it's the detailed explanation of engaging any particular ballistic missile, grossly simplified to something like: "launch detected by satellite / AWACS / long-range radar / AEGIS" + "cued and tracked by x and y" + "launched appropriate weapon system following authority" + destruction of target (or miss ) + damage assessment.

ESG's are also nice cause they demonstrate the need to network all of these disparate resources and they give you clear indications of progress and capability.

[Sea Skimmer]

I take it the heavy lift Ariane 5s wouldn't be an option then.

Saturn V can put twice the payload into moon orbit that Ariane 5 can put into a low earth orbit. I can’t imagine Ariane would be able to break earths gravity with sufficient payload and remaining performance for the job, even if we accepted much smaller warheads then 100+ megatons. Tsar bomba on its own weights significantly more then the Ariane 5 LEO payload.