Missile Defense

In a remarkable shift in policy, the United States announced on December 21, 2022 that it was supplying Ukraine with the Patriot Missile System to aid in its fight against Russia. Does this mark a major shift in the war? New Atlas takes a look.

The war in Ukraine may be turning in Kyiv's favor thanks to the deployment of American High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) precision rocket launchers, which are reported to be wreaking havoc on Russian supply depots and command centers.

In a successful demonstration of a layered missile defense system, Lockheed Martin with the Missile Defense Agency and the US Army have intercepted a tactical ballistic missile target over the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

The US Space Force has awarded Northrop Grumman and Ball Aerospace a US$2.37-billion contract to design and build two sensor payloads for a pair of polar-orbiting satellites intended to warn of ballistic and hypersonic missile launches.

Israel has conducted successful live-fire tests of the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems C-Dome, a sea-going version of the Iron Dome missile defense system, aboard the Sa’ar 6 corvette Israeli Naval Ship (INS) Magen against multiple threats.

Filling a gap in the UK Carrier Strike Group screen protecting the supercarrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, a Royal Navy Wildcat helicopter successfully fired new Martlet lightweight missiles for the first time during frontline operations.

BAE Systems has brought down drones using standard rockets equipped with its Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System and an advanced proximity fuse – an approach the company says costs much less than conventional drone countermeasures.

Boeing, in conjunction with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA), has completed a successful demonstration of a new, advanced interceptor capability for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system that allows ICBMs to be destroyed in space earlier.

In a first-of-its-kind technology demonstration, an uncrewed vehicle operated by the US Marine Corps has launched an anti-ship missile from the shore during a live-fire exercise in Hawaii, scoring a direct hit.

As hypersonic missiles rapidly move toward becoming practical weapons, the problem of how to counter them is also on the agenda. The US Department of Defense developing a CubeSats-based system to track these missiles in all phases of their flight.

With the aid of a Dutch De Zeven Provincien-class frigate, the US Navy destroyer USS Paul Ignatius used two Standard Missile-3 interceptors to destroy ballistic missiles while they were still in space during the Formidable Shield NATO sea exercises.

In a NATO exercise off the coasts of Scotland and Norway involving more than 3,000 military personnel, the Royal Navy has used artificial intelligence to help counter live-fire supersonic missile attacks in sea trials for the first time.