The SDA call for studies on speeding HBTSS "missile defense capabilities" is interesting, as its wording differs somewhat from language in an earlier solicitation from the Missile Defense Agency for proposals that appears to refer to an HBTSS satellite constellation.
Under the draft, by Feb. 28 the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, DoD components, military departments, combatant commands and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) are to put together three "scalable reference architectures" for "small, medium and large options" for the shield using "kinetic and non-kinetic" weapon systems, including costs.
Reducing cognitive overload on warfighters while improving “time to trust” for autonomous systems is a matter of design.
The agency's RFI seeks capabilities that can be deployed in "epochs" starting in 2026, and running in two year increments to "beyond" Dec. 31 2030.
Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Heath Collins told CSIS that he is "absolutely" trying to speed development of the Glide Phase Interceptor, but that any changes must keep the program "viable."
"The key word here is persistence," study author Masao Dahlgren told Breaking Defense. "How do we get persistence over the regions we care about? That hasn't been as explicitly put into prior work until now. This report puts into sharp relief."
The new "Fire-Control On Orbit-Support-To-The-War Fighter (FOO Fighter or F2)" program "will accelerate the ability to provide new fire control options for the tactical users," an SDA spokesperson told Breaking Defense. But how does it play with MDA programs?
The network transport architecture for NGC2 could be a hybrid approach that combines high assurance communications with 5G, WiFi, and multi-orbit satellites.
"I am concerned about the transition of HBTSS from the Missile Defense Agency to the Space Development Agency. The apparent shift in strategy to deploy this capability does not reflect the urgency of the hypersonic threats we face," Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., chairman of the House Armed Service's strategic forces subcommittee, told Breaking Defense.
What happens after the HBTSS prototype demonstrations, however, is yet to be determined, according to MDA and industry officials.
"We're gonna down-select ... later in the year. Then I have to worry about future budgets, and so that's what's really going to throttle" the number of contractors, says MDA Director Vice Adm. Jon Hill.
SDA and MDA need to characterize the Earth's infrared background -- which has "a lot of complex shapes to it, clouds, land and stuff like that" -- in order to "pull out the dim signal" of a hypersonic missile, an SDA official explained.
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
"What we don't want to do is launch a weapon that then opens a seeker and there's nothing there, because the target has maneuvered," Vice Adm. Jon Hill, said.
Two of the experiments, each involving two satellites, are focused on laser links: one between satellites themselves; the other from satellites to a MQ-9 Reaper drone on the ground.
“We’re not going to be able to defend every acre of North America," Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), says bluntly.
"Information gathered up to and through Tracking Layer Tranche 0 will help inform decisions about future tranches, including how many and which types of sensors should be flown to provide the warfighter a complete advanced missile threat solution," SDA spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea says.