Twenty-six months is not a normal period of time from contract award to the point where a missile departs the rail, but that was the timeline that Lockheed Martin identified as it transitioned its Next-Generation Short-Range Interceptor concept into a first flight test at White Sands Missile Range.
The U.S. Army’s NGSRI program is necessary for a reason: the FIM-92 Stinger is an 80s solution to an air defense problem that has come to include small, low-signature unmanned air vehicles as well as helicopters and high-performance aircraft. While the Stinger’s original idea is sound, its antiquated seeker, support equipment, and industrial base have narrowed the Army’s choices at precisely the time when short-range air defense is being called upon to protect more places, more often, with less warning.
The first controlled flight test of Lockheed Martin’s missile, held at White Sands, was described as the inaugural event of a series aimed at expanding the missile’s flight envelope. The company stated that the flight test proved the primary subsystems of safe launch, transition to controlled flight, and the guidance and control system, which must function correctly before any subsequent test can concentrate on intercept, had been successfully demonstrated. The test range photo accompanying the announcement depicted a tube-launched projectile fired from a scaffolded stand.
But one short message is the key to this milestone: discipline in scheduling is now a performance criterion.
The pace was described by Chris Murphy, the lead for business development of Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Programs, as follows:“The successful completion of this first flight test is a testament to our team’s agility and drive to deliver critical capabilities on an accelerated timeline. We completed our controlled flight test series in less than six months, demonstrating the speed and agility the Lockheed Martin team brings to this exciting competition.” Randy Crites, vice president of Lockheed Martin Advanced Programs, added, Our team’s shared mission, innovative approach and agility were critical to this achievement.
The design has been publicly described as “Quadstar,” a lightweight interceptor based on Lockheed Martin miniature hit-to-kill technology, while seeking a more general target set than traditional MANPADS design parameters. The design description focuses on improved seeker and guidance performance, combined with software capabilities that are claimed to be artificial intelligence and machine learning, to assist in reducing the chain of detection to engagement. This relies very heavily on the Command Launch Assembly (CLA)—the part of the system the soldier carries—the part that can benefit from digital fire control, advanced optics, and automation to mitigate the lead and “workload” requirements of previous systems.
The reference material listing the system architecture points out a launcher based on an integrated Identification Friend or Foe antenna and a missile that obviates the need for the conventional battery cooling unit, as in Stinger. This aims at two traditional sources of friction in man-portable air defense systems: the need to quickly identify aircraft and the need to maintain launchers.
The competition is still very much alive. Raytheon, teaming with Northrop Grumman, has been operating on its own maturation track that features subsystem demonstrations and propulsion development with Highly Loaded Grain solid propellant to boost energy and range. Both teams are working towards Army evaluation phases that feature fly-offs, with compatibility constraints looming in the background: whatever is chosen has to be compatible with how Stinger has been deployed in shoulder-fired and vehicle-launched variants.
Reference coverage also suggests that engineering choices are being made to ensure compatibility with existing launchers, indicating that the Army wants evolutionary development even if the interceptor itself features a more drastic generational change. In this regard, the initial flight is more about demonstrating that at least one of the NGSRI competitors has passed the briefing and bench test phase. As far as the troops are concerned, the more relevant question is whether digital launch capabilities, modular growth, and range doubling equate to a “ready round” that can be transported, directed, detected, and launched quickly enough to make a difference when low-cost aerial threats materialize in numbers.
