US Multi-Object Interceptor Hits ICBM, Decoys

by Kris Osborn

Type technology able to knock multiple incoming enemy targets out of space with a single interceptor, officials said.

The new system, called Multi-Object Kill Vehicle, or MOKV, is designed to release from a Ground Based Interceptor and destroy approaching Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs — and also take out decoys traveling alongside the incoming missile threat.

 “The multi-object kill vehicle program will enable the warfighter to counter more numerous and complex threats to the homeland by establishing the capacity to engage multiple objects from a single ground-based interceptor. This approach has the potential to shift the cost curve of missile defense by reducing the number of interceptors required to defeat the enemy,” Missile Defense Agency Spokeswoman Leah Garton told Scout Warrior. 

Command and Control testing of the emerging technology is slated for next year and initial production is expected some time in the early 2020s. In 2015, the MDA awarded three contracts with industry to define concepts for deploying multiple kill vehicles from a single booster, she added. The contracts were awarded to Boeing, Lockheed and Raytheon. 

“In fiscal 2016, industry delivered their MOKV concepts. The agency reviewed them and in June the agency released requests for proposals for industry to reduce the risk of these critical technologies,” Garton explained. 

Decoys or countermeasures are missile-like structures, objects or technologies designed to throw off or confuse the targeting and guidance systems of an approaching interceptor in order to increase the probability that the actual missile can travel through to its target.

If the seeker or guidance systems of a “kill vehicle” technology on a Ground Base Interceptor, or GBI, cannot discern an actual nuclear-armed ICBM from a decoy – the dangerous missile is more likely to pass through and avoid being destroyed.  MOKV is being developed to address this threat scenario.