Lockheed and Raytheon Vie for MKV
Via aviationweek.com
Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are taking very different design approaches as they compete to address the Missile Defense Agency’s growing concerns about tracking and destroying multiple targets, even decoys, lofted by ballistic missiles aimed at the U.S.
Intelligence officials are concerned that decoy technologies developed by the former Soviet Union and Russia have spread to would-be adversaries or could be duplicated by countries building up arsenals of ballistic missiles. Decoys can be as unsophisticated as metal fragments or balloons that are released along with a warhead when a ballistic missile’s nose cone opens up in flight. Or they can be more complicated and emulate the infrared signature of a ballistic missile or warhead. They are all designed to fool the MDA’s ground- and space-based sensor network as well as the infrared seekers on U.S. kill vehicles that are ultimately responsible for the endgame of a missile defense engagement.
