In order to do missile tracking for the next generation missile threats — hypersonic glide vehicles, hypersonic cruise missiles — we need to do two things. One, be able to have full global coverage 24/7… The second thing you need to do is be able to track those missiles with enough quality so that you can pass those data on directly to a weapons platform so they can fire on remote without relying on their own inherent capabilities in the interceptor.
That’s why there are two distinct sets of satellites that make up the tracking layer. The tracking layer is made up of a constellation of wide field of view satellites, and that is what is on contract with the SDA [space development agency] for delivery, and those when they’re fully populated will give the full global coverage and the ability to detect and track hypersonic glide vehicles and any other large launches. Now they may not be able to give you that fire-control quality that’s necessary to fire on remote so you can pass the data directly to, say, Aegis, to be able to take it out. That’s where the medium field of view come into play, being handled by MDA [missile defense agency] — they’re in source selection right now and they’re plan would be to build one or two of those in essentially the same timeframe that we are building the wide field of view systems.
We would fly those all together so we can show that the wide field of view system can que the medium field of view system, the medium field of view system can then send tracking data to the transport satellites, and the transport satellites can then send those directly down to a weapons platform. So that how the two work together.
That was an interesting Aviation Week podcast episode with Derek Tournear from the Space Development Agency. Here’s more from Tournear breaking down some aspects of the data transport layer. First, Link 16:
… XVI is an AFRL program that is going to be the first air-to-space and space-to-ground demonstration of Link 16… To be able to do the Link 16 connection to space and to a Link 16 airborne network, there’s a lot of different technical challenges there. The first is that the Link 16 is really designed on this 300 nautical mile limit, and it’s also a managed network — which means there’s a network manager who decides who can plug in and out of that network. Well if you have a proliferated LEO system, you’re going to have satellites coming in and out of different AORs [area of responsibility] Link 16 networks rapidly. That’s the most difficult part. The second part is the doppler associated with the relative speed between orbital velocities and what you typically have in air-to-air comm.
And with respect to IBS:
Now IBS, the integrated broadcast system, that’s made of two parts. The format of data messages used to transmit these signals so that everybody can get them in the same format, understand them, respond and react. The second half is, IBS is almost universally transmitted on UHF. There’s a disconnect. Our tactical downlinks are all going to be based on the L-band Link 16 to go directly to a weapons platform, or Ka- or Laser-comm to go to ground or ship-based platforms to receive that data. We are not planning to have a UHF transmitter than can get IBS out who are used to seeing it over UHF. We would go down and use Link-16, Ka-, or laser-comm with an IBS formatted message, and that would go down to something like the Army’s Titan ground station, and they could rebroadcast that out using UHF or go down to a Navy ship, and they could broadcast that out with UHF, or go down to ABMS-enabled platforms using PlatformOne… and broadcast that out.
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