December 3, 2003 :: San Diego Union Tribune :: News
After an eight month competition with Lockheed Martin, the Missile Defense Agency has awarded an eight-year, 4.5 billion dollar contract to Northrop Grumman to produce an interceptor to destroy ballistic missiles during their boost-phase. This is the MDA’s first “capability-based” contract, and involves a design that would have been banned under the old ABM Treaty.
The contract is to produce a ground-based Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI). Its use of kinetic energy simply means that the interceptor would physically impact the missile: “hit-to-kill” technology. Unlike the Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) being constructed in Alaska which would intercept long-range missiles during their midcourse phase in space, the KEI, while ground-based is designed to intercept missiles in their boost phase, that is, during their ascent. As the boost phase for even a long-range missile is no more than roughly five minutes, the KEI would have to be located near enough the launch site of the enemy missile in order to still reach it during that phase. It also has to accelerate very fast, perhaps as much as 5,000 miles per hour. This particular interceptor design would be compatible of being launched from either land or sea. It would be capable of being loaded onto aircraft and deployed anywhere in the world. Northrop Grumman will likely initially produce five mobile launchers for the KEI.
A layered-defense is ultimately necessary, but interception during the boost-phase has a number of advantages. It is during this phase that a missile is at its most vulnerable: during ascent a missile is moving at a slower speed; the body of the missile is under considerable pressure; its exhaust plumes make it more visible and thus trackable; its fuel tanks, which are still attached, constitute a larger target; no countermeasures or decoys can be deployed, and of course should the interception fail, time remains for a second attempt in the midcourse or terminal phases.
(Article)» DoD Release: Northrop Grumman Boost Phase contract
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» Missile system details for: Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI)
