The US Navy and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) have achieved a remarkable feat in missile defense: they have successfully tested a system that can track and intercept a complex ballistic missile target with multiple decoys.
The test, dubbed Stellar Sisyphus, was conducted off the coast of Hawaii using the Aegis Weapon System, a sophisticated network of sensors, computers, and weapons that can detect and destroy incoming threats.
The test involved two parts: first, the Aegis Weapon System demonstrated its ability to track and discriminate a Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) target accompanied by countermeasures, such as chaff and flares, designed to confuse the defense system.
Second, the Aegis Weapon System fired a Standard Missile – 3 Block IIA (SM-3 Blk IIA), a powerful interceptor that can destroy ballistic missiles in space, and successfully hit the same MRBM target.
This test showed that the Aegis Weapon System can handle one of the most challenging scenarios in missile defense: a complex target scene with multiple objects and decoys.
Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, MDA Director, praised the test as a key milestone in enhancing the Navy’s capabilities against evolving threats. “Today’s successful test was a key milestone in giving our Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense ships increased sensing and tracking tools to combat threat proliferation. This was an incredible accomplishment, and I commend the US Navy Sailors, the MDA team, and our industry partners,” he said.
The test also involved two US Navy destroyers, USS McCampbell and USS Jack H. Lucas, the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex, and the Advanced Radar Development Evaluation Laboratory, which collected valuable data on the target.
The data will help improve the modeling and simulation of future tracking and discrimination capabilities and enhancements.
The test was part of the Navy’s ongoing efforts to modernize its combat system with cutting-edge technology. As reported earlier, the Navy is testing a fully virtualized combat system that can run on any server and be updated in hours instead of weeks.
The virtualized combat system, also known as the Aegis Combat System, is a software-based solution that separates the hardware and the software of the Navy’s weapons and sensors. This allows the combat system to run on any generic server rather than relying on proprietary hardware that is expensive and difficult to maintain and upgrade.
One of the main benefits of the virtualized combat system is that it can receive software updates much faster than the traditional system, which can take weeks to upgrade and render the ship offline.
The virtualized combat system results from a collaborative effort between the Navy and its industry partners, led by Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the Aegis Combat System. To enable virtualization, the Navy and Lockheed Martin had to separate the hardware and the software, which have been developed, managed, and modernized together for decades.
Lockheed Martin and the Navy have also shown that they can run the virtualized Aegis software from computers much smaller than those on ships, thanks to the information-as-a-service model, which allows ships to access the software they need on demand instead of storing the entire software library on board, as Interesting Engineering reported.
The virtualized combat system promises to enhance the Navy’s connectivity, flexibility, and speed in the face of evolving threats and usher in a new era of warfare.
