After a couple rough years of wasted money and failed tests, ballistic missile defenses are humming right along. The Navy SM-3, designed for midcourse defense, is hitting its targets in tests and is already deployed aboard warships in the Sea of Japan; the Army’s Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense system is hitting its targets too and will deploy beginning in 2009. Meanwhile, the PAC-3 version of the Army’s Patriot is being widely fielded for point defense against incoming ballistic missiles. What’s missing – besides rigorous testing for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense interceptors silo-based in Alaska and California — is a boost-phase weapon that can knock down ballistic missles while they’re still climbing into the sky, which is when they’re most vulnerable.
The Missile Defense Agency is pursuing two possibilities for boost-phase intercept. The YAL-1 Airborne Laser mounted on a modified 747 is the riskiest. The combination of chemicals required for a laser powerful enough to kill a missile makes the airplane nothing short of a ticking chemical timebomb. More feasible is the Kinetic Energy Interceptor being designed by Northrop Grumman. This missile works a lot like a PAC-3 or SM-3, inasmuch as it literally strikes its target rather than just exploding near it. The difference is size. Both the PAC-3 and SM-3 are around a foot in diameter and just 15 or so feet long; the KEI, by contrast, is a monster at four feet wide and 40 feet tall. Reason being, it needs a serious booster to get it going fast enough to hit ballistic missiles just seconds after they launch.
This size is a problem. You see, despite its speed KEI has to be deployed relatively close to its potential targets: the boost-phase window really is just that short. That means sea basing. But KEI doesn’t fit inside the Vertical Launch System cells that the Navy uses for SM-3 aboard cruisers and destroyers, not by a long shot. When it first conceived of KEI, the Pentagon envisioned fitting out a large container ship or amphibious ship with KEI — neither of which is terribly practical for a system that’s supposed to be robust, responsive and affordable. Plus there’s another problem: The big booster generates such heat that is might literally melt the bottom of any ship firing it.
At a hush-hush missile defense conference in Washington, D.C. this morning, Lockheed Martin officials, who had bid on KEI but lost to Northrop Grumman, expressed doubt that KEI would ever work due to its size, the absence of an obvious launch platform and the heat problem.
But Northrop Grumman has a plan. It’s planning to install special KEI cells at an angle inside the CG(X) cruiser based on the DDG-1000 destroyer. The angle reduces the height requirements for a launching ship. And to resolve the heat situation, the firm is proposing to “cold launch” KEI, just like the Navy does for its huge nuclear Trident missiles fired from submarines. That entails a separate system to pneumatically eject the missile before its booster rocket ignites.
Of course, cold-launching adds to the complexity and cost of a missile system. And the “slanty” KEI cells will take up a lot of space in the CG(X), reducing carriage of other weapons. And CG(X) itself is a mostly theoretical warship based on a $3-billion destroyer that is taking a lot of criticism. Still, in theory, basing KEIs at sea is possible. And definitely preferable to filling a 747 with sloshing toxic chemicals.
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[...] That last point is key, as I explained back in March. The Missile Defense Agency is developing the so-called Kinetic Energy Interceptor to kill ballistic missiles just seconds after they launch. But to do that, the KEI has to be very close to the launch site — i.e., bobbing off the coast — and the KEI itself has to be enormous (four feet wide, 40 feet tall) in order to fit a powerful motor: At a hush-hush missile defense conference in Washington, D.C., this morning, Lockheed Martin officials, who had bid on KEI but lost to Northrop Grumman, expressed doubt that KEI would ever work due to its size, the absence of an obvious launch platform and the heat problem. [...]
My pike missle concepts have explosives packed bullets fired out of the tip of the rocket. It has to slow down upon range of firing. A issue the rocket does have, as you point out here. I am aware of this , but if you are looking at multiple targets , the bullets or now jdm rounds can fire out similar to the electrical firing systems in a round sequence. Missles inside the missle were another option for air to air targets, but as you state, it gives the enemy time to lock in on the target (our rocket) when it slows down to fire. That is why I suggested it to be a anti-nuclear ballistic missle. Pike missle program.
I also read the target sitelink leading to this article. The missle is more like a submarine or underground missle silo. Or possibly off of a B-1 . My logistics were provided to Nasa engineers back in 1992 to Bill Peacock. We discussed the shortcomings, but on the perspective of a missle that fires out say 120 rounds down from high altitude as a ship bomber or sub sinker, we have to realize the target of the enemy is the missle itself . Not a pilot in a plane. Now that drones are more prvalant, this idea seems less realistic for the pike. However, when we are adding in control fins we could land id perpindicular to its launch strategy. I sent over a missle VLA ASROC that could do the job instead of predeveloped technology. Perhaps this alternative of non r and d can save taxpayers monies and simply transfer this old technology to the newer destroyer and cruiser style ships. max
[...] * Re-introduce battleships, only this time they’re armed with missiles and they’re called DDG-1000 “destroyers” and CG(X) “cruisers.” [...]