Northropgrumman's Fire control Products play Key Role In successful Missile defense Test

摘要

Northrop Grumman Corp.'s advanced fire control products played a key role in the most challenging test to-date of the nations Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, the nations only defense against long-range ballistic missiles. In the system's first intercept test using multiple sensors (past tests have used only one sensor) to track and hit a live target, the GMD fire control products (GFC) integrated data from several globally-dispersed sensors to help coordinate the overall engagement sequence and more precisely track and ultimately destroy the target. In addition, Northrop Grumman's command launch equipment (CLE) ; software effectively launched the interceptor. "The Northrop Grumman fire control products demonstrated a leap in capability today," said Karen Williams, sector vice president and general manager of the Missile Defense Division for Northrop Grumman's Mission Systems sector. "In pulling data from four sensors, versus one, the GFC had to perform the challenging task of correlating a multitude of different track data to decide on a trajectory that would correctly position the interceptor to hit the target. This is an extremely complicated effort, and I congratulate our team for again raising the bar and successfully meeting the objectives for every test to date."