by Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington DC) It’s called a “bolt out of the blue,” … a massive incoming salvo of enemy ICBMs fired in close coordination to overwhelm and annihilate an enemy, rendering them too devastated to respond or counterattack. Concerns about the prospect of this kind of rapid-fire nuclear attack form the conceptual basis for why the Pentagon operates all three legs of its nuclear triad to ensure deterrence by ensuring a devastating counterattack.
The threat of a massive, catastrophic second strike nuclear response from ballistic missile submarines secretly lurking in dark waters or nuclear-armed stealth aircraft is designed to prevent an enemy from thinking it could survive through any bolt-out-of-the-blue response or countermeasure.
This is the threat scenario, wherein a rogue nation or great power rival decides to risk a massive first-strike nuclear ICBM attack, is why the Pentagon has been fast-tracking its promising new Next-Generation Interceptor program.
The Pentagon will receive a new ICBM-destroying Next-Generation Interceptor from Lockheed Martin by as soon as 2027, due to the successful application of digital engineering, software and hardware prototyping, successful testing and design model progress. The new NGI will soon take to the sky for its first intercept “flight” where its ability to track and destroy an ICBM target will be tested.
However, the existence of the air and undersea legs of the nuclear triad do not remove the need for ground-based missile defenses to operate with an ability to track and “intercept” or “destroy” multiple incoming ICBMs racing through space at one time. This is why the Pentagon continues to accelerate its Next-Generation Interceptor program such that it arrives several years earlier than anticipated. The fundamental concept of operation is to engineer a single interceptor armed with multiple “kill vehicles” capable of tracking and intercepting multiple ICBMs at one time.
“Our design features multiple kill vehicle payloads to reduce the number of interceptors required to defeat a single ballistic missile threat to our nation,” Todd Stevens, director of Advanced Programs, NGI at Lockheed Martin, said in a written statement provided to Warrior by Lockheed officials.
Lockheed reports it has completed Preliminary Design Reviews and has verified the maturity of the design, a key step toward building and then “firing” prototypes and demonstrator NGIs. The mention of digital engineering is quite significant, as that has proven to be a massive speed and efficiency-improving technological strategy. Advanced computer simulations are now able to very precisely replicate the key weapons systems performance parameters without needing to “bend metal” and build 10 different designs to discern an optimal path forward.
The MDA’s GBIs have been upgraded substantially in recent years with advanced command and control, cyber hardening and sensing technologies, yet the NGI is being engineered to introduce an entirely new, paradigm-changing ICBM defense capability. Many of the details of the various offerings, from both Lockheed Martin and a Raytheon-Northrop Grumman team, are likely not available for security or proprietary reasons, yet the Pentagon and its industry partners have mentioned several general goals and requirements for the weapon.
The original request for proposal from the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency several years ago specified that indeed a solution with “multiple” kill vehicles would be necessary, given the maturation of the threat landscape. Not only do enemy ICBMs travel fast, as a cross-continental flight through space in the midcourse phase can take about 20 minutes, but the are regularly accompanied by decoys, countermeasures, debris or obscurants designed to confuse or spoof missile defense sensors from precisely targeting the correct ICBM. This naturally increases the possibility that an actual ICBM could pass through or elude layered missile defenses in space and continue on to successfully hit its target.
For many years now, the MDA and its industry partners such as Raytheon and Lockheed have been working on engineering multiple-kill-vehicle systems which can not only destroy multiple targets in proximity at one time but also use advanced sensing technologies to discern a real ICBM from decoys, fake missiles or other objects which might appears similar in configuration such as certain kinds of debris. Sensors better able to discriminate have been progressing for many years, a technological trend which increases the prospects for successful intercept of an ICBM. Advanced sensing on kill vehicles can also help with specific guidance challenges when it comes to tracking and “hitting” a fast-moving target in space as it enables an intercept with much greater precision in complex environments.
Multiple kill vehicles also address the question of volume as well, given that an adversary is likely to fire a salvo or coordinated group of ICBMs at one time, and having a single interceptor armed with numerous kill vehicles introduces the possibility of more quickly destroying multiple ICBMs more quickly and efficiently.
“The Next Generation Interceptor program is part of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system and will provide a new, advanced interceptor to protect the homeland against limited intercontinental ballistic missile threats from rogue nations,” said Stevens,
While details or extensive specifics on the extent to which the future NGI could be upgraded to counter hypersonic weapons are likely not available for security reasons, Lockheed and the MDA are clear that the system is being engineered for continued upgradeability. This means innovative sensing, guidance or flight trajectory systems may be added as new technology emerges. The NGI is primarily focused on intercepting ICBMs, using advanced sensing discrimination to distinguish decoys from real ICBM and potentially destroying several ICBM with a single interceptor carrying multiple kill vehicles. The Pentagon has several separate fast-moving technologies specific to countering hypersonic weapons attacks, such as the Glide Phase Interceptor and the space-based, satellite-enabled Hypersonic & Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor. In the future, it is entirely realistic that the NGI could be networked with a Glide Phase Interceptor or HBTSS system to share and coordinate threat information and targeting data.
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University
