Independent Working Group Report: Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century. »»
February 11, 2012
IWG Report 2009
Independent Working Group Report: Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century. »»
Search
Home :: Missile Defense Systems
Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS)
| Country: | USA |
|---|---|
| Basing: | Space |
| In Service: | Exp. 2007 |
Details
The Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) will consist of low-orbiting infrared satellites designed to detect and track ballistic missiles in all stages of flight. Data from STSS will allow U.S. interceptors to engage enemy missiles as early as possible in their trajectories and discriminate between warheads and decoys.
Several decades ago when laying the groundwork for its missile defense shield, the Pentagon realized that if it wanted to provide an effective defense against ballistic missile attack, it needed to create a quick and efficient method of detecting and tracking enemy launches. In other words, it needed to build a constellation of infrared satellites that would serve as the watchtower for the entire Ballistic Missile Defense System.
During the 1980s, a program to create a constellation of low-orbiting satellites known as “Brilliant Eyes” began under the auspices of the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO). In 1996, Brilliant Eyes was transferred to the U.S. Air Force, which had been given the responsibility of building a new Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) to replace the old defense Support Program (DSP). SBIRS, an integrated “system of systems,” was to include constellations of high- and low-orbiting satellites and a robust ground command center.
The initial plan for SBIRS was two-fold: (1) a Space-Based Infrared System-High (SBIRS-High) component that would consist of six large satellites deployed at 22,000 miles above the Earth; and (2) a Space-Based Infrared System-Low (SBIRS-Low) component (formerly Brilliant Eyes) that would include 20-30 smaller satellites in low-earth orbit roughly 621 to 930 miles above the Earth. In 2001, SBIRS-Low was transferred to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and in 2002 was renamed the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS). Northrop Grumman is its prime contractor.
Once deployed, STSS will have the responsibility of tracking enemy missiles against the cold background of space, one of the biggest challenges of ballistic missile defense. Not only will STSS succeed at this task, it will observe its targets with great detail. To accomplish this mission, each satellite will consist of three main components: a wide-view acquisition sensor, a narrow-view tracking sensor, and a signal and data processor subsystem.
In a typical combat scenario, the wide-view acquisition sensor will detect an enemy ballistic missile just after it has been launched, i.e. in its vulnerable boost phase when its rocket engines are burning hot. The acquisition sensor will provide high-resolution horizon-to-horizon detection capability. It will consist of a wide field-of-view scanning refractive telescope and a short-wave infrared focal plane array.
Once the enemy missile has completed its post-boost phase and passed into its midcourse phase, the narrow-view tracking sensor will pick up the threat and follow it through the cold vacuum of space. The tracking sensor will include a narrowly focused telescope that will provide coverage above and below the horizon line. Even though a midcourse-phase ballistic missile will not have heat-producing rocket plumes, the narrow-view tracking sensor will be cooled to cryogenic temperatures so that it will be able to detect the dim warhead.
As the wide-view acquisition sensor and the narrow-view tracking sensor follow the enemy missile along its trajectory, the signal and data processor subsystem will receive and filter the enormous amount of incoming data. The processor will be capable of filtering 2.1 gigabits of data per second, which some have likened to reading an entire set of encyclopedias six times in one second. It will be able to simultaneously detect and track more than 100 objects in real time, and will differentiate missiles and warheads from decoys, debris, clutter, and noise. All the while, STSS will transmit this data to ground command centers to allow for quick and efficient interceptor launches.
In recent months, STSS has made rapid progress and has been hailed as one of MDA’s most successful projects. The system passed its critical review phase in December of 2003. In April 2004, MDA announced that STSS is six months ahead of schedule.
The first two STSS satellites are scheduled for deployment in 2007. Although these satellites will provide little, if any, operational capability, MDA plans to expand STSS to at least 18 satellites in order to cover key threat regions such as Asia and the Middle East. STSS will achieve worldwide coverage once 30 satellites are deployed.
Sources
Boese, Wade. “U.S. Missile Defense Programs At A Glance.” Arms Control Today, 1 June 2003.
Smith, Marcia S. “Military Space Programs: Issues Concerning DOD’s SBIRS and STSS Programs.” Congressional Research Service, Report No. RS21148, 3 November 2003.
Missile Defense Agency.
Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Northrop Grumman Capitol Source.
Perera, David. “MDA: Low-Earth Orbit Missile Tracker Six Months Ahead Of Schedule.” Inside Missile Defense, 28 April 2004.
Raytheon Company, STSS Description.
Raytheon Company, STSS Block 06 Sensor Payload.
Successful BMD Tracking Satellites Launched
The Missile Defense Agency, together with NASA and the Air Force, launched two Space Tracking and Surveillance System Demonstrator satellites from Cape Canaveral, FL. The STSS satellites will help provide a more robust surveillance layer to the national Ballistic Missile Defense System, communicating detection and tracking information from launch to termination to Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.
Now in low-Earth orbit, satellite sensors "will be tested in a series of scheduled events involving ground targets, airborne targets and short and long range ballistic missile targets."
» Missile system details for: Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS)
SSTS Sensor Payload Delivered
The Missile Defense Agency has recently announced the delivery of the first Block 2006 sensor payload for the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) Program. Once deployed, STSS satellites will provide global coverage of ballistic missile launches, and will be capable of tracking missile and warheads through all phases of flight. The STSS payload sensor suite, consisting of an acquisition sensor and a track sensor, is capable of detecting visible and infrared light. Two STSS research and development satellites will launch into low earth orbit in 2007 on a single Delta II launch vehicle, and will demonstrate the key functions of a space-based sensor. The STSS payload was built by Raytheon and delivered to the STSS prime contractor Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California.
» More stories on: Space-Based Systems
» Missile system details for: Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS)
Obering: Time May be Right for Experiments With Space-Based Defenses
“Emerging threats round the world indicate the need for developing a space-based layer” of defensive systems, said Missile Defense Agency Director Lieutenant General Henry Obering yesterday at the 3rd Annual Missile Defense Conference in Washington, reports Defense News. The MDA, Obering said, would like to “maintain options for a space-based test bed” to begin experiments by fiscal year 2007. “There is a lot of attraction to space-based interceptors.”
Obering noted, however, the ideological opposition which such tests will likely provoke: the subject is fraught with “a lot of emotionalism and religious argument” associated with weaponizing space.”
The Aerospace Daily & Defense Report reported on April 12 that the MDA currently plans to award one-year concept design contracts to two to four industry teams in FY 2008, and that in FY 2009, one or more teams would be picked for a development and test phase that would extend to FY 2015 and include several space-based intercept tests, with a decision on whether to build a constellation of some 50 to 100 satellites possibly taking place 2014-2015. The MDA is not even seeking money for the project, however, until FY 2008, with some $45 million.
Speaking also of the Space Tracking Surveillance System (STSS) satellite system, Obering expressed, “I believe this is critical, by the way, to the future of the missile defense program…I believe we have to get to space as it relates to our sensing capability because we don’t know where the threat is going to be emerging from so we have to be able to provide global coverage and this is the only way to do it really, is from space.”
MDA is also reportedly planning to begin the Near Field InfraRed Experiment (NFIRE) in FY2007, an experimental satellite that would collect data on ballistic missile plumes.
» More stories on: Space-Based Systems
» Missile system details for: Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE), Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS)
MDA: Low-Earth Orbit Missile Tracker Six Months Ahead of Schedule
Citing an April 13 report from the Missile Defense Agency, Inside Missile Defense says that the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS), a $3 billion low-earth orbit satellite scanning system that tracks ballistic missiles in space, passed an important design review last December and is six months ahead of schedule.
The STSS is mounted with two infrared sensors, “a wide-view acquisition sensor for boost phase detection and a narrow-view sensor that tracks delivery vehicles through the middle of their trajectories in space.”
Two STSS satellites are expected to be launched in 2007, after the “integration” of the pair of sensors begins in 2005.
» More stories on: Space-Based Systems, Detection and Tracking
» Missile system details for: Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS)
Home :: Missile Defense Systems
