The Missile Defense Agency is planning a live hypersonic missile intercept demonstration after the test completion of a simulated engagement Monday using Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Combat System. In an MDA statement Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, MDA director and a Wash100 awardee, stressed the critical need for defense against the “increasingly dangerous threat” of hypersonic missiles.
“The Aegis Weapon System will play a vital role in the next-generation integrated air and missile defense system, and (the) test demonstrated key achievements as we continue to partner with the Navy in advancing our nation’s counter-hypersonic capabilities,” the MDA chief noted.
Test Elements Aboard USS Pinckney
Monday’s Flight Test Other-40, or FTX 40, was performed aboard USS Pinckney (DDG 91) wherein an updated Standard Missile-6 was deployed for the simulated engagement against an air-launched medium range ballistic missile with a Hypersonic Target Vehicle-1 front end. The test used the Sea Based Terminal Increment 3 function incorporated in the latest Aegis software framework. Also known as Stellar Banshee, the test also enabled data collection for the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor demonstration satellite.
FTX-40 follows through on FTM-32, a 2024 SBT Increment 3 flight test experiment aboard an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer for the detection, tracking, engagement and SM-6 interception of an MRBM target at its flight’s terminal phase. The live hypersonic missile intercept demo that MDA plans next will be called Flight Test Aegis Weapon System-43, or FTM-43.
In April, a fully virtualized Aegis Combat System was deployed from the USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) to intercept an air target with a missile during the final phase of a combat system qualification trials that made the vessel the first U.S. Navy ship operating the Aegis system.
