The Navy and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) successfully tested the “engage on remote” capability of the Aegis combat system in December, using the software baseline that will be employed by the Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania against intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).
The test, called FTI-03, was conducted at an Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii. The Aegis system, running the baseline software program 9.B2.0, tracked an IRBM air-launched from an Air Force C-17 heavy-lift aircraft thousands of miles from the test site. The Aegis system then cued the launch of an SM-3 Block 2A missile, which intercepted the target.
The demonstration follows a sea-based test, called FTM-45, carried out from the Arleigh Burke–class destroyer USS John Finn (DDG-113) in October, in which Aegis baseline 9.C2 directed the remote launch of a Pacific Missile Range Facility Block 2A SM-3 to intercept an IRBM.
MDA and Navy officials say the “engage on remote” sequence demonstrated in the December test uses only data provided by remote sensors; the platform launching the SM-3 never had radar contact with the target. Engage on remote is a step beyond “launch on remote,” wherein the launch site uses offboard data for the launch but relies on its own radar to lock onto the target during the target’s final approach.
Paul Klammer, Lockheed Martin’s BMD director, says the Navy and MDA are pursuing collaborative BMD initiatives that employ variants of the Aegis baseline 9 program. Navy baselines 9.B and 9.C are designated 5.1 by MDA.
He points out that the 9.B MDA program is used with Aegis Ashore solely for the BMD mission. Navy variant 9.C incorporates not only BMD but also all shipboard antisurface, antisubmarine, and antiair warfare missions to provide comprehensive Navy integrated air and missile defense (IAMD).
The Aegis Ashore facilities consist of a structure housing the SPY radar and computers and a launching system—similar to the Navy’s Mk-41 vertical launch system on board Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke–class destroyers—with a capacity of 24 SM-3 missiles.
Lockheed Martin, longtime builder of the SPY-1 and developer of the Aegis program, is providing the newest variants of Aegis baseline 9 for MDA, for selected guided-missile cruisers (CGs) and destroyers (DDGs) through the Navy’s modernization program.
Under the current plan, 11 of the Navy’s 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers will go through some degree of modernization. Four of those—the USS Shiloh (CG-67), Lake Erie (CG-70), Vella Gulf (CG-72), and Port Royal (CG-73)—will receive baseline 9 for full BMD capability. The entire Arleigh Burke–class of 89 ships already in service or under contract, as well as future ships of the class, will be configured for full-up BMD/IAMD capability.
Lockheed’s Klammer says that for the destroyer BMD upgrades, the company will rely on the Navy’s combat system common source library (CSL). The CSL maintains a wide range of combat system application programs, such that ships now using older Aegis baselines and Navy-proprietary combat system computers easily could be upgraded with BMD capability. By the end of fiscal 2019, the Navy hopes to have 42 BMD-capable ships.
DDGs purchased in fiscal year 2017 and later (not including the three Zumwalt-class ships) will be built based on a Flight III design that introduces Raytheon’s SPY-6 air- and missile-defense radar. The SPY-6 will be integrated with Lockheed’s Aegis baseline 10, now in development, for full-up IAMD capability.
In late September 2018, the Navy awarded a contract to Huntington Ingalls Industries for construction of six more Flight III ships and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works for four ships, with each contract providing options for additional purchases.
Huntington Ingalls will build the first Flight III ship, the USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125). Bath Iron Works will build the second, the Louis H. Wilson Jr. (DDG-126).