Targets and Countermeasures

Lockheed Martin is a leading experienced provider of threat realistic missile targets and countermeasures. We’re creating sophisticated solutions to fit our customers’ missions.


For more than 25 years, we have been building targets with short, medium, intermediate, and long-range capability to represent real-world threats. These targets are used to test missile defense systems and to fulfill specific test objectives.
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We have created unarmed, threat-representative, reliable, and cost-effective target systems, ballistic re-entry vehicles (RVs), and countermeasures.
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Our targets and countermeasures technology helps the systems of today be prepared to deter and if necessary, defeat the threat and helps our customer and the warfighter keep pace with the threat.
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Our program has a greater than 99-percent reliability rate, achieving more than 68 successful target missions since 1996.

 

Rocket Science, For Testing Purposes

Building ballistic missile target vehicles and payloads is rocket science and to test systems’ end-to-end capability, you need a target! These targets are launched to test, verify, and validate missile defense systems’ performance. They are not meant to be operationally fielded—they remain test assets, helping our customers get equipped to confront their greatest challenges.

Lockheed Martin designs, tests, and produces countermeasures that can be deployed during testing. Countermeasures are used by potential adversaries in an attempt to “confuse” defense systems. It is critical that our defensive systems discern the real threats versus the countermeasures and we provide our customer with the ability to thoroughly test the system.

Lockheed Martin Target solutions enable a robust test regime that stresses the architecture, system design, and performance of the Missile Defense System. This includes tests against known and emerging threats in realistic, operational-like scenarios.


 

Why Targets are Needed

Our targets help our customers prepare, protect, and prevail. It is essential to test defensive systems within the Missile Defense System, to assure they are ready to handle and negate the threats they’re likely to encounter operationally. Targets play a critical role and, at Lockheed Martin, our targets are threat-representative reentry vehicles for other missile target providers, as well as mission support and execution services.

Lockheed Martin has Targets on lock.

  • These short-, medium-, intermediate- and long-range ballistic missiles are launched from air and ground platforms.

  • At Lockheed Martin, we have the expertise and knowledge to rapidly reverse-engineer adversary threat information to replicate threat design and performance into high fidelity targets.

  • The team is leveraging advanced and additive manufacturing processes to decrease product lead time and increase flexibility to respond to the ever-changing threat.

  • Customers rely on us to provide trusted solutions from “cradle to grave.”  We do this with our industry partners through world-class missile assembly and test facilities, fully checking out the target end-to-end, and prior to shipment. We employ a “ship to shoot” mentality so that once our customers receive our targets, they’re ready to go.

  • Our targets are “smart”, containing the necessary subsystems to fly on US government flight test ranges. Our targets also include the subsystems for real time hit detection to support interceptor lethality assessments.