THE US ARMY has awarded Boeing North American additional funding to build subsystems for a weapon able to knock out enemy reconnaissance and communications satellites.
The $35 million, added to a $44 million deal won by Boeing's newly acquired Rocketdyne division, covers development of an operational weapons-control subsystem and integration of components to demonstrate hit-to-kill capabilities.
The US Army's Space and Strategic Defense Command has been funding development of advanced technologies related to fielding an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. "The need for an early ASAT capability was defined as a result of the growing spread of space-based photography," says the US Army.
"These capabilities have been integrated into a prototype kill vehicle and weapons-control subsystem for early demonstration of an ASAT capability under a prior contract," it adds.
The ASAT device being developed by the former Rockwell International unit is different from the 1975-to-mid-1980s US Air Force effort to field an aircraft-launched satellite killer.
The earlier ASAT effort involved a "direct-ascent" weapon fired from the McDonnell Douglas F-15. The two-stage weapon mounted a miniature homing vehicle which used passive infra-red sensors to home in on a spacecraft.
The US Army ASAT effort was initiated in 1990, but reduced to a technology-demonstration project two years later by congressional critics. Four years later, the project was given new life.
As designed, refurbished boosters would be used to launch kinetic kill vehicles (KKVs) which use electro-optical homing to intercept satellites in low-Earth orbit.
Candidates include the STARS booster (the first and second stages of de-activated Polaris sea-launched ballistic missiles); and the retired Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile.
Flight tests are planned from the Pacific Test Range in Hawaii in fiscal year 1998.
Source: Flight International
