Destructive Expendable Countermeasure Kill Vehicle (DECMKV)

Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) are a major threat to military aircraft. These threats have been widely proliferated over the past 30 – 40 years, and are readily available both to state and non-state users. The objective of the DECM effort is to develop an innovative aircraft self-protection destructive countermeasure payload, capable of being dispensed from the F/A-18’s Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) dispenser, which will be capable of autonomously acquiring, tracking and homing on an inbound threat missile, and destroying or rendering it ineffective. The approach will apply advanced processing, sensing and kinetic flare countermeasure technology.BENEFITS: An effective expendable countermeasure capable of destroying a MANPADS threat missile will have an immediate role in the protection of military aircraft. In addition, with the proliferation of these missiles and their use by terrorists, it has become apparent to many that there is a strong need to protect civil/commercial aircraft. Efforts are currently being made to apply conventional chaff and flare countermeasures, intended to divert missile threats from their target, to the protection of civil/commercial aircraft, but it is anticipated that the effectiveness of these systems against MANPADS threats may be limited. A countermeasure that intercepts and destroys MANPADS threat missiles at a safe distance will have strong benefit for both military and civil/commercial aircraft.