The US Navy has commenced work on evolving its Orbital Sciences Corporation GQM-163A Coyote supersonic target drone to perform high-dive strike profiles to replicate changing anti-ship missile attack patterns.
The service is also hoping to reinvigorate its stalled ‘Threat-D’ target programme, but concedes funding approvals remain difficult to secure.
The "high diver" Coyote concept was launched in March this year, with initial operational capability envisaged for mid-2008.
Captain Pat Buckley, programme manager aerial targets and decoy systems in the US Naval Air Systems Command, indicates the Coyote upgrade will be predominantly software based and will be retrofitted into existing production targets.
Speaking at the US National Defense Industrial Association's annual UAV, targets and ranges conference in Panama City, Florida, he said: “We did not want to go out and create a separate variant of the GQM-163, we are trying to come up with a solution that will enable us to use any given GQM-163 in either mode – either a high-diver mode or a sea-skimming mode”.
The existing Coyote flight profile is based on launch with a Mk70 rocket booster to an altitude of 1,000ft, then cruising at speeds of M2.5 for 65km at an altitude of 66ft above sea level. The terminal phase, covering the final 20km, is again performed at M2.5 but at an altitude of 15ft and including manoeuvring to avoid ship countermeasures and self defence systems.
In the "high diver" profile, the target would again see launch with a Mk70 booster, but then climb to 15,000ft and cruise at M3-4 for 40km. In the terminal phase, the drone would perform a powered 80 degree dive onto the ship under test.
According to Rear Admiral Tim Heely, US Navy programme executive officer for strike weapons and unmanned aircraft, the proposed evolution is part of efforts to expand the capabilities of existing USN supersonic targets across the board. He told the conference that "we need ways...to be able to re-programme these things without starting all over again. We have to be able to add capabilities as we figure out what the threat has; to be able to change these weapons so we don't have to rebuild every single thing, and don't have to come from a clean sheet of paper every time the threat either improves or our intelligence improves to find out what the threat can really do".
The USN plans to award Orbital its second Coyote full-rate production contract by January next year. “We have a high degree of confidence that it will be a highly reliable target” says Buckley.
Ahead of the introduction of the modified Coyotes, the USN will start using its Raytheon AQM-37 supersonic targets as a “low-fidelity surrogate for the high-diver threat”. That target type has been out of production since 2001 and is due to exit USN service within 4-5 years Buckley said.
The USN has previously anticipated performing the high-diver attack profile using the Boeing MA-31 target, however that programme continues to experience problems in securing access to sufficient baseline Russian Zvezda-Strela missile design bureau KH-31 supersonic sea-skimming missiles stocks for conversion.
MA31 will continue to be supported, Heely said, but the USN wants to turn away from future efforts to buy representative threat missiles from Russia for adaptation into target systems. At least two recent efforts to secure access to conversion missile stocks had fallen over due to a combination of US State Department restrictions and Russian authorities electing not to proceed. “We have to counter that ‘just buy the other threat and find out how to do that’ [approach], which at times can be almost as expensive as creating your own [target] and try to replicate that threat profile.
Boeing has been on contract since 2000 to produce the MA-31. Buckley told the conference: "We are optimistic that we are going to get there. We have got some good leads going on right now, but it is still very problematic.” He said that integration of the target aboard USAF F-16 Falcon fighters has now been completed and “if we can get some vehicles up we should be off and running. The MA-31 will be a sea-skimmer and also a high-diver”.
Progressing the USN’s Threat-D target requirement, intended to replicate the NPO Mashinostroyenhe 3M-54E ‘Alfa’ supersonic sea-skimming missiles, remains dependent on funding approvals Buckley told the conference.
Analysis of alternatives for the Threat-D requirement was completed in March this year and a capability development plan approved in June. “The challenge has been in resourcing”, Buckley said, which resulted in the project then being placed under review: “The Navy was taking a real hard look at procuring a Threat-D end-to-end materiel solution. The Navy was examining the risks associated in using current capabilities knowing there would be limitations to test.”
That review process now includes the US DoD “with more to follow” Buckley said.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
