Sunday, April 27, 2014

US Navy Testing Over the Horizon Air Defense Systems

The Navy is preparing for another test of a new cruise missile defense system that can identify and destroy threats from beyond the radar horizon, Lockheed officials said.

The system, called Naval Integrated Fire Control – Counter Air, or NIFC-CA, uses a Standard Missile 6 and an airborne sensor to track and destroy approaching cruise missiles at much longer distances than existing technologies can.

“The NIFC-CA capability pushes out the engagement envelope that these ships have not had previously. You are pushing the engagement envelope beyond the radar horizon,” said Jim Sheridan, director of Aegis U.S. Navy programs at Lockheed Martin. “There’s an airborne sensor that’s involved. Once the missile leaves the ship you are actually firing it at something that the ship itself cannot see because the engagement takes place beyond the horizon.”

The test is slated for this coming June aboard the USS John Paul Jones, DDG 53. The first test firing, which involved a successful demonstration of the defensive technology, took place last August aboard a Navy cruiser — the USS Chancellorsville, CG62.

“This is the next step in the testing. Previously it was tested from a cruiser configuration and now we’re testing it in a destroyer configuration. Some of the parameters of the target and the flight profile are a little different. Let’s just characterize it as a more stressful test than the one on board the USS Chancellorsville,” Sheridan added.

The SM6 interceptor missile uses an active seeker to zero in on an approaching target at distances greater than a ship’s on-board sensors can detect. Sheridan said the SM6 used for NIFC-CA leverages technology similar to the active guidance system engineered into an air-to-air beyond visual range missile, the AIM-120 Advanced-Air-to-Air Medium Range Missile.

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