Case Stories

ITT Advanced Engineering & Sciences Provides Test & Evaluation of Theater and Ballistic Missile Defense & Strategic Systems Systems

In a world where more than a dozen nations possess ballistic missile technology and more are racing to acquire weapons of mass destruction, one of America's most pressing national security challenges is to improve current defenses against missile attack. In support of Ballistic Missile Defense & Strategic Systems System Testing, ITT Advanced Engineering & Sciences (AES) is providing government agencies with a wide range of research, technologies, and engineering support services.

Nanosecond Phenomena Testing Experience Proves Valuable

With decades of experience in providing test and evaluation support of underground nuclear tests for the U.S., AES has a rich history in analyzing nanosecond phenomena. This experience translates well to the realm of ballistic Missile Defense & Strategic Systems (BMD) because much of the testing and evaluation for the BMDS takes place in a time line calculated in tens of microseconds. According to Dr. Nasit Ari, Section Manager for Lethality Testing and Analysis in the Systems Analysis, Integration & Testing Department at AES, "AES is a leading expert in understanding and managing microsecond phenomena."

ITT AES Sensor Key to Acquiring Ballistic Missile Defense & Strategic Systems Flight Test Data

Hitting a "bullet with a bullet" is how the military describes their success during a recent BMDS test over the Pacific Ocean. In this test of technologies to be used in a proposed national missile defense system, a kill vehicle used sensors and thrusters to home in on a target, a dummy warhead fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The job of finding out what was happening on board the target just before high-speed impact from an interceptor was given to ITT AES.

In the successful flight test, the target was instrumented with an AES Photonic Hit Indicator (PHI) System designed to transmit the interceptor hit location to receiving ground data recording stations prior to the total demise of the target a few tens of microseconds after impact.

The PHI sensor system is composed of a fiber-optic grid that is designed to provide unique impact location indications for different flight test target vehicles. This fiber-optic grid interfaces with an AES designed and fabricated Electronics Package (EP).  The PHI EP is specifically designed to interface with the fiber-optic grid and to record, and transmit to the ground, hit location information using state-of-the-art techniques.  Many different shapes and sizes of concept target vehicles are used in interceptor tests, with each requiring a different design tailored for that target. The PHI sensor grid is adapted to each target vehicle to provide the impact location data within 2 cm. on most test targets.  The PHI system is designed and fabricated in the Test, Analysis and Sensor Systems Department in Colorado Springs. The PHI program is under the management of Dr. Gary Paderewski.

Data Acquisition Crucial To Evaluating Tests

As part of testing the effectiveness of new technologies being deployed in ballistic missile tests, it is crucial for the engineers and scientists to evaluate the data recorded from sensors contained on both the dummy warhead and the kill vehicle. Time is of the essence during these tests, with a requirement for multiple data transmissions within tens of microseconds after impact.

AES is the leading technical expert in collecting high-speed telemetry data. Dr. Ari notes that, "Because you collect the data over a very short period of time - measured in microseconds - it needs to be collected virtually error free with less than one bit error in 10 million." AES has developed a unique set of hardware and transmission methodologies to support the PHI sensors for a full data recording of an impact event prior to target vehicle destruction.

The approach supports test requirements and provides greater freedom for additional sensors for more details on the location and progression of damage on the target vehicle.

AES also provides equipment and manpower to collect data and support the test event for each customer, no matter the location around the world. For BMDS tests, AES personnel man three separate mobile telemetry ground stations positioned in the Pacific Ocean at Carlos, Roi, and Wake Islands on behalf of the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command. These three stations are assigned to collect the AES PHI system data and other target and interceptor on-board test data. Throughout these critical tests of the BMDS, the AES ground stations have achieved virtual error-free transmission of very high rate data and accomplished 100% of their mission objectives.

Missile Defense & Strategic Systems Research at the JNIC

The Joint National Integration Center (JNIC) is a unique national resource specifically designed and built to provide the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) with a center of excellence for joint missile defense interoperability testing, wargaming exercises, simulation, modeling and analysis. AES personnel provide the JNIC with a wide range of engineering support services to support this broad mission.

Wargaming at JNIC

The JNIC is the nation's premier Missile Defense & Strategic Systems wargaming center, offering the nation's warfighting commanders-in-chief a unique environment for evaluating operational concepts, doctrines, and strategies for both theater and national Missile Defense & Strategic Systems.

The wargame exercises at JNIC are played out on computer screens with interfaces designed to look and feel as if the participant were in a real operational environment.

As a key player in Missile Defense & Strategic Systems wargaming at JNIC, AES personnel develop software used for wargames as well as supply personnel who provide set up and system testing. In the event that there are not enough participants to run a wargame scenario, Dick Wallner, Program Manager for AES notes that, "We also have people to act as position players during the wargames if all of the positions cannot be manned. We also provide training to the warfighters."

AES personnel are working in the development of software for a new wargaming system known as Wargame 2000. Wargame 2000 is intended to provide a more realistic simulated combat environment that will allow warfighting commanders, their staffs, and the acquisition community to examine missile and air defense concepts of operation.

Threat Development

A primary task of the JNIC is to develop, host, and integrate uniform models and simulations for Missile Defense & Strategic Systems based on approved MDA data. AES supports the JNIC in creating approved threat data.

The MDA works with a variety of agencies and contractors in research and development of theater and ballistic Missile Defense & Strategic Systems systems. In order to do analysis and system development for the MDA, these agencies and contractors need to use the same approved threats. Wallner notes, "We all need to be fighting the same battles so that we can accurately measure the effectiveness of one system concept against another."

Working closely with intelligence and military agencies, AES personnel typically prepare a few dozen major threat scenarios per year for the JNIC. These threats can range from a single missile launch to an 80-day theater campaign. That information is then supplied to over 120 customers including government agencies and contractors.

Modeling & Simulation

The JNIC also conducts various command and control simulations to allow military forces to examine a range of air and Missile Defense & Strategic Systems concepts of operation, command and control, human-in-control issues, and system effectiveness.

AES experts in areas such as High Level (HLA) and Joint Technical Architecture (JTA) compliance assist the JNIC in these simulations by making sure the development of all new systems and tools are interoperable and comply with DoD protocols.

AES also supports the JNIC in a number of other key research efforts including testing on how various Missile Defense & Strategic Systems systems will interoperate in a wartime environment. According to Wallner, the testing includes, "reaching out to theater Missile Defense & Strategic Systems systems over high speed data links, reviewing the retrieved data, and making observations as to whether these missile systems will talk to each other and interoperate in the manner they need to for effective warfighting."

For government agencies and contractors working with JNIC, AES also maintains a very large electronic database of codes, simulations, models, testing data, and Missile Defense & Strategic Systems information going back many years.

Evaluating Lethality Effectiveness

Lethality is the bottom line in Missile Defense & Strategic Systems. AES has been the principal evaluator of lethality effectiveness for Ballistic Missile Defense systems for over 25 years including the Patriot, THAAD, ARROW, and the NMD's Ground Based Interceptor.

AES engineers and scientists conduct extensive lethality analysis testing to provide real-time user support to weapon developers and Missile Defense & Strategic Systems architecture planners. Lethality testing validates that interceptors are capable of defeating hostile missiles equipped with weapons of mass destruction.

Beginning with high fidelity simulation and modeling, AES engineers help predict how interceptors will perform against a variety of payloads. Because there are so many possible engagement scenarios, with the impossibility of field-testing them all, AES's experience in simulation and modeling has become all the more important.

Target Manufacturing

AES's Aerotherm department is an industry leader in systems engineering related to hyperthermal environments. AES designs, fabricates, and flight tests reentry vehicle targets for the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense & Strategic Systems Command in support of the Ballistic Missile Targets Joint Project Office (BMTJPO).

Duane Baker, Manager of Aerotherm explains that, "The core technical skills of the engineers and scientists at Aerotherm are associated with any system that goes fast - and because it goes fast, the surface gets hot."

"Going fast and getting hot" would describe the "threat representative targets" that are designed, developed, fabricated, tested and supplied for flight testing by Aerotherm.

Aerotherm's legacy in target manufacturing goes back to the mid-1980's with the successful development of a passive decoy for a strategic countermeasures program. Baker recalls that, "We began our work in target manufacturing by demonstrating, through the smart use of materials, that we could successfully replicate a passive decoy with the signature of a Minuteman III, Mark 12."

Developing current targets begins with data on the type of payload and the look of the actual threat. From that data, Aerotherm engineers develop a design that is representative of the threat. Baker notes that, "We try to manufacture a design as close to the threat as possible, but you have to accommodate for instrumentation such as the PHI for lethality test data and thermocouple sensors to measure the surface temperature of the target."

Target designs normally exhibit a metal aeroshell, a thermal protection system on the outside of the aeroshell, and a composite tip. Additionally a bulk chemical payload or a sub-munition payload is included to more accurately simulate the threat.

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