C4ISRNet:
Managing data is the biggest challenge to developing a new space-based sensor layer that would help detect hypersonic weapons, the director of the Missile Defense Agency said Oct. 7.
The agency is working toward building the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, a layer of sensors on orbit that would be capable of detecting and tracking hypersonic weapons that the nation’s current missile defense architecture was not designed to handle. The new system will be built into the Space Development Agency’s constellation of low earth orbit satellites.
ForVice Adm. Jon Hill, the director of the agency, designing the sensors for the system is a surmountable engineering issue and evolving commercial launch capabilities mean it will be easy to get the technology to space once its ready. The real challenge is “the passing of track data between different space vehicles and maintaining track and dealing with clutter.”
