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Draper Lab wins MDA missile guidance contract

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The first of two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors is launched during a successful intercept test. The test, conducted by Missile Defense Agency (MDA), Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) Operational Test Agency, Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, and U.S. Pacific Command, in conjunction with U.S. Army soldiers from the Alpha Battery, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, U.S. Navy sailors aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Decatur (DDG-73), and U.S. Air Force airmen from the 613th Air and Operations Center resulted in the intercept of one medium-range ballistic missile target by THAAD, and one medium-range ballistic missile target by Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). The test, designated Flight Test Operational-01 (FTO-01), stressed the ability of the Aegis BMD and THAAD weapon systems to function in a layered defense architecture and defeat a raid of two near-simultaneous ballistic missile targets

The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory has been awarded a $36.9 million Missile Defense Agency contract for missile guidance.

Under the contract, Draper will provide “technical and analytical support for Missile Defense Agency related to evaluation, maturation, integration, test and demonstration of leading edge guidance, navigation and control technologies,” according to the Department of Defense contract announcement. “This effort also includes research analysis on sensors, modeling and simulation, radiation hardening and survivability and precision targeting as well as weapons development.”

The work is scheduled to be completed by July 2022.

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Michael Peck is a correspondent for Defense News and a columnist for the Center for European Policy Analysis. He holds an M.A. in political science from Rutgers University. Find him at theuncommondefense.com. His email is mikedefense1@gmail.com.