Solid Rocket Motors for High Performance Interceptors

The advent of hypersonic attacks is pushing the current limits of the United States’ anti-missile defense system, Aegis. In the time required by Aegis to launch a counter attack, a hypersonic threat would already have flown such that an interceptor missile could not catch up. To resolve this challenge, Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) collaborated with The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and Sierra Engineering and Software Inc. (Sierra) during the Phase I program to develop an advanced solid rocket motor technology for high-performance, compact interceptors. ACT, PSU, and Sierra designed a highly loaded solid rocket motor packed with high density energetic materials capable of producing a vacuum specific impulse of at least 280 seconds and a 20% increase in total impulse. Moving to the Phase II effort, ACT will bring back the strong team members from PSU and Sierra to develop and execute incremental evaluation and testing that matures the notional propellant grain technologies introduced in the Phase I period. A new team member, Industrial Solid Propulsion (ISP), will contribute in the culminating production, testing, and assessment of a prototype. Approved for Public Release | 22-MDA-11102 (22 Mar 22)