Low Cost, High Performance Integral Composite Shroud for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor Kill Vehicle

The missile defense ground-based Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) system will intercept and destroy threat vehicles in their boost phase of flight. The KEI mission results in system requirements for forward basing, transportability and mobility, higher accelerations and closing velocities, greater cross-range, and lightweight systems, as well as the need for lower cost and producible systems. The KEI Kill Vehicle (KV) must be protected by a shroud during its flight through the atmosphere. The shroud must be lightweight, exhibit high thermal/ablation performance to protect the KV from aerodynamic heating, and high strength to survive launch loads and ensure separation from the KV without causing damage. Conventional shroud structural approaches use either heavy metallic or tape-wound composite substructures with a secondarily-bonded heatshield. An alternative integrated composite heatshield and substructure shroud approach is proposed that eliminates the secondary heatshield-substructure secondary bonding operation, reduces manufacturing costs, increases the temperature capability, reduces shroud weight, and still provides high performance thermal/ablation and strength properties for the KEI KV. A program is proposed to develop and demonstrate a low cost high performance integrated composite substructure and heatshield design using a High Performance Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer molding composites manufacturing process (HyPerVARTM) for the high performance KEI KV shroud application. The Phase I program will demonstrate feasibility of the HyPerVARTM integrated composite shroud approach by developing the conceptual design and manufacturing process and conducting subscale fabrication demonstrations and material properties testing for the KEI KV shroud application. A Phase II program will develop and demonstrate the HyPerVARTM integrated composite shroud manufacturing process through design, fabrication, and structural test of full-scale test articles representative of the KEI KV shroud.