HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- The deputy to the commander, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, moderated the Space and Missile Defense Technology Development Panel at the 19th SMD Symposium Aug. 18 at the Von Braun Center.
Julie Schumacher provided an update on SMDC/ARSTRAT promising technologies, space research and development, and high energy laser subsystems.
She said the Army has a requirement to defeat threats such as rockets, artillery and mortars, unmanned aerial systems, and other systems and sensors.
"Current solutions to defeat these particular threats, such as interceptors, are an expensive mismatch for those threats, thus the reason for the lower cost high energy laser," said Schumacher.
She said the mobile high energy laser project which started in 2012 has shown great results.
"We plan to integrate a new laser in (fiscal year) 2017 and conduct 50kW demonstrations in (fiscal year) 2018 to continue to reduce risk for the project," Schumacher said.
Schumacher went on to discuss small satellite technology.
"Our Technical Center has been working for many years on small satellite technology with a focus on tactical space and how to get timely communications and imagery to the Warfighter -- particularly the disadvantaged Soldier who might be operating in a remote location," she said.
"The concept is to have a constellation of small satellites in low-earth orbit that can be launched quickly because of any particular need," Schumacher continued. "They will have a useful life of about two years and could go through a technical refresh quickly and inexpensively."
The satellites, which are the about the size of a loaf of bread, currently cost about $500K each.
"We have three SNaP (SMDC nanosatellite program) communication satellites that were launched in October 2015," said Schumacher. "We have a total of 10 on orbit right now, and we monitor those on a ground station in our lab in our headquarters building in the Von Braun Complex on Redstone Arsenal."
She said they are also working on a small imagery satellite called Kestrel Eye that gathers imagery data.
"We plan to deploy Kestrel Eye from the International Space Station early in calendar year 17. If all goes as planned, we will have an Army astronaut deploy Kestrel Eye," said Schumacher.
Two promising technologies she discussed included hypersonic flight and high-powered microwave technologies.
Schumacher reported how SMDC is supporting the Navy's hypersonic flight experiment with a test scheduled in 2017. The Navy effort is part of the defense-wide conventional prompt global strike development project. SMDC conducted a successful flight demonstration of a hypersonic vehicle in November 2011 under the same project.
She also discussed the microwave frequency oscillator that has shown promise for counter-improvised explosive device and other applications during successful testing.
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