A Unified Approach to Intercept Signature Prediction and Kill Assessment Based on High-fidelity Physics Models

A successful intercept of a missile by a kinetic energy kill vehicle initiates a complex sequence of events and associated observable signatures that occur over a very wide range of temporal, spatial, and spectral scales. The signatures contain highly desirable information on the lethality of the intercept (glancing blow or deadly impact) and on the contents of the warhead (nuclear, biological, or chemical). A unified, phenomenologically complete model of the intercept signatures does not exist. We propose to address this important MDA need by unifying existing high fidelity physics based models to enable an end-to-end simulation of the intercept signatures. An existing hydrocode will be used to describe the very early time break up and plasma evolution. The SOCRATES-P code will be used to model the longer time scale debris cloud evolution and its interactions with the atmosphere. The FLITES code will be used to compute the spatial and spectral emissions from the model flow fields. Phase I will focus on specifying interfaces between these codes and generating flowfield databases to enable real-time HWIL (HardWare In the Loop) simulations. Phase II will focus on interface development and application of the unified software for end-to-end simulations.