Following a successful interception in April 2012, in which the new-production Patriot was paired with JLENS, Raytheon IAMD Business Development Manager Glenn Walker declared, “Patriot was state-of-the-art in 1982 when it was delivered into the U.S. Army inventory and Patriot is state-of-the-art in 2012 when it was delivered to the UAE inventory.”

While both the United States and Germany have announced they will only fund the development phase of MEADS, with no current funding set for production or procurement, that program is far from dead as a potential new addition to the state-of-the-art in TMD. The prime contractor for system development is MEADS International, a multinational joint venture headquartered in Orlando, Fla., with major subcontractors and joint venture partners including Lockheed Martin in the United States and MBDA in Italy and Germany.

Designed as a mobile air defense system, it would use PAC-3 interceptors to destroy incoming tactical or medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, armed UAVs, and aircraft. In August 2012, a Multifunction Fire Control Radar (MFCR) was integrated with a MEADS battle manager and launcher at Pratica di Mare Air Force Base, Italy. A series of tests then were conducted to show the system’s tactical operations center could control the MFCR in coordination with the MEADS launcher and provide 360-degree target acquisition and tracking.

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, which has a record of 10-for-10 successful intercepts in the EMD phase of development, is the only TMD system capable of intercepting incoming missiles both inside and outside of the Earth’s atmosphere during their terminal flight phase. Two THAAD batteries have been fielded at Fort Bliss, Texas, comprising six launchers, two fire control and communications components, two AN/TPY-2 radars, and 48 hit-to-kill interceptors. Fielding of the next two batteries is scheduled during 2013, with Battery 5 fielding expected in 2015.

The Aegis Combat System, deployed on more than 100 ships in five navies, will be transforming into a land-based TMD – Aegis Ashore – for installations in Romania and Poland. As with the ship-based version, Aegis Ashore will use the SM-3 interceptor.

“There is no difference between shore- and sea-based versions of SM-3,” Raytheon Missile Systems SM-3 Business Development Director Dan Lambert told Defense. “The unique thing about Aegis Ashore is it transfers from ship to shore with few changes, other than building a blockhouse to house the Aegis controls – same radar, same missile, same launching system. It’s almost as if they hacked off the top section of an Aegis cruiser and moved it ashore, bolting it down on a concrete slab.”

Due to its size and weight, Aegis Ashore will be a permanent installation, lacking the mobility of some other TMD systems or its ship-based cousin. Its purpose will be to defend a specific land mass for an extended period of time.

“The phased adaptive approach [to European missile defense] takes advantage of the state of the art of Aegis and SM-3 capabilities to defend a pretty large piece of the European land mass,” Lambert said. “It gives you a substantial exoatmospheric ability to defend against medium and intermediate range missiles in areas where coverage from a ship might be problematic.

“When you talk about a defended area, you try to optimize for those by getting the interceptors fairly close to the enemy launch points. For example, if a quarterback throws a pass to a wide receiver, it arcs up and the defender only has seconds in the descent phase to leap up and catch the ball before it reaches the receiver. But if he could catch it at its apogee, that interception would be much closer to the quarterback [launch point].”

Aegis Ashore also offers a “launch on remote” capability, in case one installation has a better track on an incoming target, but another – ashore or afloat – has a better intercept geometry. The first would send its tracking data to the second, which then would launch one of its SM-3 interceptors even if it never saw the target missile. Lambert said that concept has been exercised and proven, most recently in April 2011.

Although Aegis cruisers host up to 128 missiles, MDA only plans to place 24 at each European site – one Phase 2 site in Romania (in 2015) and one Phase 3 site in Poland (2018). Each phase represents an upgrade to the system, with Phase 2 incorporating SM-3 Block 1B. Phase 3 will incorporate SM-3 Block 1B and SM-3 Block 2A. The currently deployed Block 1A on ships is being replaced by Block 1B, which uses the same missile but a new kinetic weapon that includes a two-color IR seeker and a Throttling Divert and Attitude Control System (TDACS).

“The new seeker is better able to discriminate chaff from real targets in space and the TDACS, which is filled with solid rocket motor fuel, lights for a moment and then shuts off, unlike most solid rocket motors that continue firing until the fuel is gone,” he explained. “SM-3 Block 2A, now in development with Japan, will have nothing in common with previous versions except the booster motor. It has a new second stage rocket motor that is larger than the current version and a third stage that is 50 percent greater in diameter. The IR seeker also will have a bigger aperture, so it will be able to see more and be better able to hit the target.

“MDA currently has a plan for SM-3 Block 2B, which is in concept development and is being competed among Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. It is planned to support Phase 4 of the phased adaptive approach, with fielding after 2022.” In March 2013, however, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that the SM-3 Block 2B program was being “restructured,” so Phase 4 of the program is, at least for now, in limbo.

Two other U.S. systems also are being fielded – Hawk XXI and the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) – as an upgrade to or replacement for the Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk surface-to-air missile. First fielded in 1960, Hawk was phased out of U.S. service in 2002, but remains a part of missile defense programs in some 18 other nations.

“When we started marketing NASAMS around the globe, we went to our Hawk customers, but they asked for a modernization and growth path for Hawk instead, so we developed Hawk XXI. We replaced the C2 node, augmented the acquisition radars with the Sentinel radar and improved the tracking radar that guides the Hawk missile to its target,” Glaeser said.

“The Sentinel radar is in NASAMS, so once a customer modernizes to Hawk XXI, it would be easy to take one more step, adding AMRAAM [Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile], and have a mix of missiles – or retire the Hawk and have a pure NASAMS capability. So it is a cost-effective way to improve Hawk today but, at some time in the future, as the threat dictates and budgets allow, transition to a complete NASAMS.”

NASAMS currently is deployed in six nations and in competition for a seventh as what Raytheon calls a “medium ability” for TMD.

“The weapons system consists of a Raytheon C2 node, the Sentinel radar – which is a 360-degree X-band surveillance radar – and some launcher stations, either canister launchers or high-mobility launchers. We integrate the AIM-120 AMRAAM active seeker missile to go against cruise missiles or air-breathing threats,” Glaeser said.

“Today NASAMS does not have a capability against a tactical ballistic missile threat, but has a superior capability against cruise missiles and air-breathing threats. That’s why you want an integrated system, with both Patriot and NASAMS, so if you can identify the threat, you can select the most cost-effective interceptor.”

Another U.S. system – Ground-based Mid-course Defense (GMD), with Boeing as integrator – employs multiple sensors to detect and track ballistic missile threats, launching Ground-Based Interceptors (GBIs) with Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) warheads for hit-to-kill destruction of targets outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Current interceptor sites are at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

While no one is certain what the Chinese may have in development, the consensus is that no other nation has the range of TMD systems and capabilities offered by the United States and Israel – with the United States essentially alone in defense against ICBMs. To date, the latter capability has not been tested in combat and results have been mixed in countering shorter-range threats, although Iron Dome indicates great improvement in that category in recent years.

As with armor versus anti-armor weaponry, the state of the art in TMD is directly related to the state of the art in threats. Not counting the United States, NATO, Russia, and China, MDA estimates there are nearly 6,000 ballistic missiles in the world, many within range of U.S. bases, deployed forces, and allies. As a result, according to the agency, “one of the greatest threats facing the world today remains the increasing proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction.”

This story was first published in Defense: Winter 2013 Edition.