Northrop tests Guardian anti-missile system

Published 26 September 2008

On 8-9 September, Northrop Grumman successfully tested the Guardian anti-missile system; from heights exceeding 50,000 feet, the system successfully detected, tracked, and directed a laser to intercept a target missile

Northrop Grumman Corp., the largest maker of unmanned aircraft for the U.S. military, demonstrated a high-altitude defense that the company says could be installed on unpiloted drones to protect airports against shoulder-fired rockets. From heights exceeding 50,000 feet, the system successfully detected, tracked, and directed a laser to intercept a target missile, Jack Pledger, Northrop’s director of infrared counter-measures, said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Edmond Lococo the other day. The system worked in all three tests at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico on 8 and 9 September. A fourth test was scrapped when the target malfunctioned.

The trials were run under a $6.6 million contract from DHS to show the feasibility of using unmanned aircraft above airports to defeat shoulder- launched, heat-seeking missiles fired at commercial aircraft. For the demonstration, Northrop modified the Guardian countermeasure system it has tested on jetliners for thirteen months. A high-altitude system “would provide another layer of protection to focus on heavy traffic areas, or areas of concern,” Pledger said. “We demonstrated what can be done today and what needs to be done to move this technology forward.”

The Guardian, which directs a laser to jam the heat-seeking guidance systems on rockets, has acquired 10,000 hours of flying time on 4,600 commercial flights (for a detailed discussion of the Guardian, see 29 February 2008 HS Daily Wire analysis). Northrop modified Guardian for high altitude and tested it from the White Knight aircraft that launched SpaceShipOne in 2004 as the first private, manned spacecraft. Northrop bought Scaled Composites LLC, maker of White Knight, last year. Northrop will deliver a report to DHS by March on what would be needed for a complete unmanned, high-altitude system, Pledger said.

Terrorists launched two missiles that narrowly missed an Israeli passenger jet in Kenya in 2002. There is no exact figure of shoulder-fired missile attacks on civilian airplanes in the last four decades, but the number is generall estimated to be between fifty and sixty attacks. 

Los Angeles-based Northrop had sales of $32 billion last year and is the world’s largest warship maker. Northrop fell $1.42 to $64.10 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.