5 Reasons the Most Advanced Missile Defense Tech Matters
Imagine this: It’s 5:32 a.m., and your command gets urgent notification of incoming enemy missiles launched and heading your way. It’s time to act fast. You have to destroy the missile before it reaches you.
When it comes to protecting soldiers, citizens and infrastructure in critical moments like these, governments need highly advanced missile defense systems that can defeat evolving threats. Here’s why:
5. Accuracy
To stop a missile, you have to hit the missile mid-flight. Experts liken it to hitting a bullet with a bullet. Older technology is designed to get close to a target and self-detonate to damage or deflect the threat, which can result in dangerous missile debris falling in protected areas. Lockheed Martin’s interceptors employ hit-to-kill technology that can hit a target head on, completely destroying the threat and keeping dangerous debris away from protected areas.
4. Agility
Technology is advancing fast and adversaries are developing missiles with better agility designed to evade older missile defense interceptors. However, systems like THAAD, MEADS, as well as PAC-3 and PAC-3 MSE interceptors have improved agility to defeat evolving threats.
3. Range
The further you can destroy an incoming missile from its intended target, the safer your soldiers and citizens become. The Lockheed Martin-built systems like THAAD and Aegis can intercept targets inside or outside of the atmosphere, defusing threats far before they can cause damage.
2. International Cooperation
Modern missile defense systems like MEADS will have an open-architecture that allows countries to integrate their assets to improve defensive capabilities and reduce costs. Using plug-and-fight capability, radars and launchers can be rapidly added or subtracted to achieve an intercept. Working together with a common integrated air picture, the system selects the launcher with the best position to intercept.
1. Integrated Protection
Adversaries have missiles with different ranges, speeds, sizes and performance. The most advanced missile defense architectures integrate several systems that provide a layered defense and multiple opportunities to engage any threat. Lockheed Martin-built systems like THAAD, MEADS, AEGIS, PAC-3, PAC-3 MSE and C2BMC have proven they can all work in concert to defeat any incoming threat before it reaches its target.