US Navy Tests Aegis' Air Warfare And Ballistic Missile Defense Capabilities

US Navy has successfully tested Aegis Combat System’s air warfare (AW) and ballistic missile defense (BMD) capabilities.

The tests were conducted along with Lockheed Martin. The Multi-mission Warfare (MMW) tests were conducted aboard USS John Paul Jones that began on July 28 and ended on August 1, Lockheed Martin said in a statement Tuesday.

The latest iteration of the Aegis configuration for destroyers, called Baseline 9.C1, also includes the most current generation of ballistic missile defense programming, known as BMD 5.0 CU. The MMW events were designed to verify performance of recent BMD upgrades.  Over the course of the four MMW events, Aegis flawlessly detected, tracked, and engaged two Ballistic Missile and two air warfare targets. Each event resulted in the successful intercept of a single target.

This test series also marks the first endo-atmospheric (lower atmosphere) engagement of a Ballistic Missile target to demonstrate a Baseline 9.C1 capability. This capability allows Aegis to engage ballistic missiles in their terminal phase--as they re-enter the endo-atmosphere, which is the last opportunity to intercept the warhead before it reaches its target.

Under the Baseline 9 configuration, Aegis merges BMD and anti-air warfare into its Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) capability using commercial-off-the-shelf and open architecture technologies.

The central component of the Lockheed Martin-developed Aegis BMD Combat System (SPY-1) is fielded naval phased array radar. SPY-1 capability has been greatly enhanced with the introduction of a new Multi-Mission Signal Processor (MMSP).