Aegis Combat System Successfully Completes Two Flight Tests

The Lockheed Martin, U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency team's Aegis Combat System successfully completed two flight tests in three weeks.

This is the first time the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) weapon system employed the Baseline 9 configuration to detect, track and engage targets. With each flight test, the Aegis BMD system has proven its ability to support the Navy's efforts to curb evolving threats by accomplishing increasingly challenging situations, Lockheed Martin said in a statement.

"The most recent Aegis Combat System test scenarios underscore the complex potential threats we are facing in today's defense environment," said Paul Klammer, director of BMD Programs, Integration and Strategy at Lockheed Martin's Mission Systems and Training business. "These successful engagements demonstrated the extraordinary capabilities of Aegis BMD  and Baseline 9 and the readiness of our sailors aboard the USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53), to continue to defend our nation in the air, on land and at sea."

On Oct. 17, USS John Paul Jones conducted Flight Test Tracking Exercise-20 (FTX-20). During the exercise, Aegis Baseline 9 tracked a medium range ballistic missile target using its BMD capability. The Aegis BMD system fired a simulated SM-3 Block IB missile to intercept the target.

A few weeks later, USS John Paul Jones completed the first Baseline 9 live firing using its integrated air and missile defense capability on Nov. 6. Flight Test Standard Missile (FTM)-25 tested the Aegis system's ability to engage a BMD target, as well as, two anti-air warfare targets successfully.

Aegis Baseline 9 is the latest combat system evolution that increases the number of BMD ships and provides the surface fleet the most advanced air defense capability ever. Under the Baseline 9 configuration, Aegis moves toward commercial-off-the-shelf and open architecture technologies and merges BMD and anti-air warfare into its integrated air and missile defense capability

The central component of the Lockheed Martin-developed Aegis BMD Combat System is the SPY-1 radar, deployed on more than 100 ships worldwide, it is the most widely fielded naval phased array radar in the world. The Aegis system and SPY-1 radar provide the U.S. and allied nations with advanced surveillance, anti-air warfare and missile defense capabilities.