The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Northrop Grumman Corporation have finalized verification and validation of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) Performance Assessment 2009 (PA09). PA09 is an end-to-end system-level simulation conducted to analyze how the BMDS integrated radars, communication networks and interceptors perform during scenarios.

Northrop Grumman, as the prime contractor at the Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center (MDIOC) under the Joint National Integration Center Research and Development Contract, led the team that integrated and executed the unprecedented simulation. The simulation represented a complete BMDS engagement from enemy missile launch to intercept by a BMDS kill vehicle.

"Performance Assessment 2009 was a great success," said Karen Williams, vice president of Air and Missile Defense Systems for Northrop Grumman's Information Systems sector.

"Through disciplined and rigorous integration and more than 2,500 test executions, we created a baseline configuration for 36 distinct scenarios.

"PA09 was a critical step in providing our war fighting commanders with accurate predictions of the performance of the BMDS," added Williams.

Because the potential combinations of BMDS configurations, intercept scenarios and missile threats are too numerous for ground and flight testing, assessing overall BMDS performance depends upon the use of high-fidelity models and simulations for evaluating the capabilities of the system.

PA09 brought together the capabilities of the various element models in a comprehensive simulation in order to analyze how the BMDS would perform against strategic and theater/regional threats.

"The scale and complexity of the activity was remarkable," said Williams. "This achievement was clearly the result of tremendous effort from and cooperation amongst the services, our diverse industry partners and the MDA."

The BMDS element models engaged in PA09 include Space-Based Infrared System; Patriot Advanced Capability; Terminal High Altitude Area Defense; Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense; Ground-based Midcourse Defense; and Command, Control, Battle Management, Communications. PA09 successfully executed and analyzed 36 scenarios including four digital ground-test reconstructions and three digital flight-test reconstructions. PA09 was conducted at the MDIOC, Colorado Springs, Colo.

The MDIOC is the U.S. Department of Defense's premier missile defense center for integration, deployment and operation of the nation's BMDS. Nearly every BMDS-level modeling and simulation, ground test, flight test, wargame, training exercise, mission-critical operation and related analysis is conducted, supported or monitored at the MDIOC.

Northrop Grumman has been the prime contractor at the MDIOC for more than 15 years. In this role, the company uses its broad and deep system-of-systems experience to lead a world-class team to conduct BMDS-level modeling and simulation, ground and flight tests, analysis and operational training. Northrop Grumman has been a leader of the modeling and simulation community for the MDA since 1995.