Missile Defense & Strategic Systems

Lethality Evaluation

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 testing to provide real-time user support to weapon developers and missile defense architecture planners. Lethality testing, including high fidelity simulation and modeling, gas gun tests, and hit-to-kill sled tests ensure that interceptors are capable of defeating hostile missiles equipped with weapons of mass destruction.

Missile Defense & Strategic Systems Research

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

Missile Defense & Strategic Systems Test Support

As part of testing the effectiveness of new technologies being deployed in ballistic missile tests, it is crucial for the engineers and scientists at AES to record and 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 has developed a unique set of hardware and transmission methodologies to support photonic hit indicator sensors for a full data recording of an impact event prior to target vehicle destruction.

AES also provides equipment and manpower to collect data and support the test event for each customer, no matter the location around the world.  In recent tests of the BMD System, AES ground stations achieved virtual error-free transmission of very high rate data and accomplished 100% of their mission objectives.

Photonic Hit Indicator

The dummy warheads used in testing proposed national Missile Defense & Strategic Systems systems are instrumented with an AES Photonic Hit Indicator (PHI) System designed to transmit the interceptor hit location before the total demise of the target within a few tens of microseconds.

The PHI sensor system is composed of a fiber-optic grid that is designed to provide precise impact location data for different flight test target vehicles. Many different sizes and shapes of concept target vehicles are used in BMDS interceptor tests, with each requiring a custom grid design (both shape and pattern). The PHI sensor grid is adapted to each target vehicle to provide the impact location data within 2 cm on most test targets.

Modeling and Analysis

The Weapon Effects Modeling and Analysis group concentrates on modeling and simulation (M&S) activities for a wide variety of complex scenarios, most recently concentrating on terrorist situations and counterproliferation.  High-fidelity computer models and analytical codes are used to provide cost-effective answers to "what if" situations, such as whether different collision scenarios would cause detonation of enclosed ordnance (and for what combination of conditions), how typical weather patterns would spread contaminants from a site, or how effective different types of weapons would be in attacking and defeating aboveground or buried structures.  An extensive array of computer codes is used to simulate each of the aspects involved in these analyses:  atmospheric transport modeling, blast and impact dynamics, structural response, and agent release modeling.  There are also simplified models that are used to perform parameter studies and provide rapid, realistic assessments of loading and response situations in a cost-effective manner.  While these capabilities have been applied to conventional engineering problems, the main application for these models is in counterproliferation, force protection, anti-terrorist, and weapon system safety assessment studies.  The five main areas of study in this group are:

	Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)/Blast:  energetic environment modeling, initial conditions for response analyses.
	Agent Release Modeling/Source Terms:  initial conditions on compromise and release of submunitions, nerve agents, and biological agents.
	Atmospheric Transport/Internal Dispersion:  venting and spread of released chemical/biological agents.
	Structural Response and Damage Modeling:  damage formation and spread, along with structural transient response and post-event evaluation.
	Fast Analytic Codes:  rapid analysis tools for parameter studies and intermediate situation assessments.

Target Manufacturing

Live testing for Missile Defense & Strategic Systems requires real targets.  AES' 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 Command in support of the Ballistic Missile Targets Joint Project Office.