Missile Defense

In a major defense milestone, the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG-91) has successfully completed a simulated engagement with a live hypersonic missile in the waters off the Hawaiian Islands.

The Trump administration's Iron Dome for America executive order is causing political ripples, but with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) soliciting industry input on the concept, how would such a comprehensive missile defense system work?

Washington, DC is arguably the most closely defended airspace in the world. Now it's getting an upgrade thanks to a new AI camera system that can quickly identify unauthorized intruders and warn them off with a laser beam.

At this year's Euronaval show outside of Paris, MBDA is showing off the latest version of its venerable Exocet anti-ship missile. The new submarine-launched SM40 boasts greatly increased range and targeting capabilities.

In response to the return to large-scale peer-to-peer warfare, Anduril has unveiled its new Barracuda family of autonomous cruise missiles, which can be built to "hyper-scale" for intelligent swarm attacks against hardened targets.

Northrop Grumman is developing a layered air defense against drone swarms centered on a new rapid-fire chain gun system armed with self-guided smart ammo that can take out drones at a fraction of the cost of missile defenses.

Lockheed Martin has released more details about its Mako hypersonic missile that the company is building for the US Air Force and international customers. The multi-mission missile that flies at Mach 5+ can be launched from a wide variety of aircraft.

China has just made another move on the hypersonic missile war game board. An incredibly accurate laser-based radar system has been announced that would be able to track objects ripping through the sky at over four miles per second.

Rheinmetall has taken the wraps off GMARS, the new Global Mobile Artillery Rocket System developed with Lockheed Martin. It could be the future of NATO land missile systems thanks to its advanced features and compatibility with current systems.

Demonstrating that semi-autonomous weapons are the mainstay of the future and not an oddity, the US Navy and Lockheed Martin have completed a test of four Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) simultaneously in flight with minimal human guidance.

The Royal Navy is banking on state-of-the-art decoy launchers to protect its stealth ships. The £135 million (US$170 million) Ancilia Trainable Decoy Launcher project will counter the latest missile and drone threats.

The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has completed a major test (FTG-12) of a stage-selectable Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) missile system that destroyed an air-launched Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) target vehicle.