Orbital,
Dulles VA: Orbital Sciences has announced that it successfully launched the second of two medium-range target vehicles supporting the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Critical Measurements and Countermeasures Program, Campaign 2.
Orbital carried out the launch April 28 from the Pacific Missile Range on Kaua`i, Hawai`i, under the Targets and Countermeasures program, with Lockheed Martin as the prime contractor.
Orbital repeated its role in the first CMCM-2 launch, which was successfully conducted April 13. The company supplied the boost vehicle, integrated the payload deployment module and re-entry system built by Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico – as well as an MDA-provided secondary payload – and conducted launch operations under contract with Lockheed Martin.
“We are delighted to have successfully executed the second mission of the CMCM-2 campaign in support of the U.S. missile defense effort,” said Ronald D. Wiley, Orbital's senior vice president of suborbital launch vehicles. “Both missions provided a great deal of phenomenology and signature data that (are) critical to MDA's missile defense development activities, and also allowed MDA to examine target vehicle performance data that (help) improve modeling and simulation capabilities for future target missions.”
Orbital supplies and operates suborbital boosters and anti-ship cruise missile targets used to test defensive weapons systems. In addition to the Critical Measurements and Countermeasures Program, Orbital supplies target vehicles for MDA's Ground-based Midcourse Defense System, the U.S. Navy's Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, and the U.S. Army's Patriot and Theater High Altitude Area Defense Systems.
