Breaking Defense

Four years after a disastrous Limited User Test forced the Army to reboot the program, the IBCS missile defense network has gotten its second chance and it’s hitting the targets — even with one of its communications relays being jammed. Early this morning, the Northrop Grumman-built system successfully orchestrated the interception of a pair of low-flying MQM-178 target drones designed to simulate incoming cruise missiles.

“What happened today was multiple sensors, multiple shooters, and a command and control system that identified, classified, and passed a track to the right shooter,” said Gen. John “Mike” Murray, chief of Army Futures Command. While it’ll be months before all the terabytes of test data are fully analyzed, he said, “I’m comfortable with where we are and what we’ve learned — [and] to be honest with you, I wasn’t that way three months ago.”

Now, this isn’t the first time IBCS has successfully shot down a target. It’s not even the first time IBCS has shot down multiple incoming targets at once (that was in December). But this is the most demanding test it’s ever done. In the Limited User Test, IBCS being operated not by contractors but by regular Army soldiers, under intense scrutiny by independent Army evaluators, and facing active interference from an “enemy” jammer as it tries to connect a larger set of systems than ever before.

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