“International Herald Leader,” Liu Guowei freelance writer from Beijing October 26, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency will be a one billion U.S. dollars worth of contracts awarded Lockheed Martin to upgrade the U.S. “Aegis” missile defense system performance. Reuters reported: “China’s rapid development of ballistic missiles, making the task of the rapid escalation of the U.S. Navy has become more urgent.”
Engage in two-pronged approach to upgrade
Lockheed Martin is the “Aegis” missile defense system, the main contractor, in recent years has not only been a lot of “Aegis” system production contract, but also swept the “Aegis” system to follow-up to upgrade services. In the Reuters reports, Lockheed Martin’s sea-based missile defense project leader Orlando Carvalho said: “The new contract will ‘Aegis’ ballistic missile defense system can effectively deal with global security threats spiral development the trend will further increase with the number of ballistic missile defense capability of the ship. ”
So, the U.S. military hopes to “Aegis” system to do what’s promoted? In recent years, Lockheed Martin from the “Aegis” system focused on continuing to upgrade the technical point of view, the United States will focus on two major efforts to raise the “Aegis” system of missile defense capability. One is the use of a new type of radar signal and data processor to improve the shipboard SPY-1 radar tracking, identifying true and false target ballistic missile capabilities, so have limited long-range ballistic missile interception capability and enhancing the “Aegis” system to deal with the probability of a new anti-ballistic missiles. The second is to improve the interceptor missile, increasing the airspace intercept operations, for which the military has been in and “standard (SM)” prime contractor Raytheon missile cooperation, “SM-3″ of the various types of interceptor upgrade.
Many successful interception test
“Aegis” is a U.S. Navy ship-based ballistic missile defense system “Aegis” weapons control system and the “standard” anti-aircraft missiles, based on an improved and developed as a mobile sea-based ballistic missile defense system.
The first set of “Aegis” system with the “Ticonderoga” class cruisers enter the Navy in 1983, has been the world’s total of 21 “Aegis” warships equipped with anti-ballistic missile capabilities, the U.S. Navy 19 ships, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force 2.
In May 2006, the U.S. Navy, “Lake Erie” cruiser in the last paragraph of a short-range ballistic missile successfully conducted the flight intercept. In June 2008, at the Pacific Missile Range in a test, “Aegis” Ballistic Missile Defense Weapon System (BMD) have once again successfully detect, track and intercept a short-range ballistic missile target. As of last year, “Aegis” BMD system is still the middle-guided phase of the successful completion of 12 interceptor missiles outside the atmosphere.
In addition to the anti-missile capability test, “Lake Erie” cruiser “Aegis” BMD system, had also temporary transformation, in February 2008 successfully destroyed a satellite out of control, demonstrating powerful anti-satellite capabilities of the system .
Are worried about China’s missile
“Aegis” anti-missile system after several years of testing, the performance of a good anti-ballistic missile capability. But the U.S. military has spared no effort to carry out revision upgrade, this time of the signing of a contract to upgrade more emphasis to the “response to China’s rapidly growing threat of mobile ballistic missile warheads,” in fact, primarily out of fear that Chinese ballistic missiles for its aircraft carrier the threat of large surface ships.
October 1, the PLA at the National Day military parade on the show several new types of missiles, they immediately became the U.S. military “target.” October 6, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense in the “New York Post” to “Why is the U.S. worried about China” as the title, saying “China’s Dongfeng -21 missile is the world’s first one can be a moving target at sea carried out against ballistic missiles. It can occur in the United States during the war by the Chinese used to attack the U.S. aircraft carriers, mobile missile warheads configure a range of more than 1.6 thousand kilometers … … In addition to their destruction prior to launch, the U.S. Navy without a high degree of self-confidence to deal with Dongfeng -21 missile. ”
However, with these highly exaggerated “China’s ballistic missile threat,” the report compared to a lot of technical articles at home and abroad are also calmly pointed out that in the vast oceans to detect and lock on a moving target, such as aircraft carriers and other large warships, is still a very challenging problem. Because it is mainly used for ballistic missiles to attack large fixed targets, in advance to determine its coordinates system to calculate the trajectory of missiles, missile launch, after flying toward the target along the intended trajectory, while the large-scale attack on the non-moving target to their talents. Military intelligence analysts believe that the United States to invest heavily on the “Aegis” anti-missile system to upgrade is to strengthen the technological advantages, to ensure that its naval fleet in the vast ocean of absolute security.
