Missile Defense: Review of Results and Limitations of an Early National Missile Defense Flight Test

Abstract

For a number of years, the Department of Defense has been researching and developing defenses against ballistic missile attacks on the United States, its deployed forces, friends, and allies. In 1990, the Department awarded research and development contracts to three contractors to develop and test exoatmospheric kill vehicles. The Department planned to use the best of the three vehicles in a follow-on missile defense program. One of the contractors, Rockwell International, subcontracted a portion of its kill vehicle design work to TRW. TRW was tasked with developing software that could operate on a computer onboard the kill vehicle. The software was to analyze data collected in flight by the kill vehicle's sensor (which collects real-time information about threat objects), enabling the kill vehicle to distinguish an enemy warhead from accompanying decoys.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA399464

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Sensors
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Acquisition
  • Ballistic Missiles
  • Contractors
  • Defense Systems
  • Department Of Defense
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Engineering
  • False Alarms
  • Feature Extraction
  • Governments
  • Kalman Filters
  • Personnel Management
  • Project Management
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Warning Systems

Readers

  • Defense Acquisition Program Management
  • Missile Defense Systems.
  • Research Science/Academic Research