Contract for Mini-Kill Vehicles Awarded

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is moving ahead on a project that it hopes will address what is perceived as one of the biggest challenges to U.S. missile defense programs: the possibility that an enemy could simply overwhelm a system by launching multiple warheads simultaneously or hiding a warhead among several decoys.

On Jan. 7, MDA awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Corporation to research and develop a Miniature Kill Vehicle (MKV). The contract will initially be worth $27 million for an 11-month period, but its potential value totals $768 million over eight years.

A kill vehicle is a compact array of sensors and propulsion mechanisms that is lifted into space by a powerful booster. Once in space, the kill vehicle is supposed to separate from its booster and home in on an enemy warhead in space. The kill vehicle is not armed with an explosive device or warhead but destroys its target through a high-speed collision.

The ground-based missile defense interceptor, set for deployment later this year, employs a single kill vehicle weighing approximately 55 kilograms. Under the new contract, Lockheed Martin will reduce the size of the kill vehicle so that up to “several dozen” can be fitted on a “carrier vehicle” for a single interceptor, Lockheed Martin spokesperson Lori Reichert said Feb. 17. The carrier vehicle will assign each MKV, which will maneuver autonomously after separating from the carrier vehicle, a target to hit.

In theory, a single interceptor armed with multiple kill vehicles could hit as many targets as it had kill vehicles. This would obviate the need for an interceptor to select only one target to hit if it faces several warheads or decoys at once, reducing the likelihood that a warhead might slip by.The notional date for testing the new type of kill vehicle against real targets is 2007. MDA hopes to start deploying MKVs as soon as 2008.