Report of the American Physical Society Study Group on Boost-Phase Intercept Systems for National Missile Defense: Scientific and Technical Issues

Capability and Development Time Trade-off Analysis in Systems-of-Systems

“…The beam power, P, determines the amount of energy that will be delivered to the missile. Again, based on the extensive report by Barton et al (2004), a reasonable power performance for the COIL beam is around 5 MW. The capability of the ABL will be a function of this performance parameter as well as the performance of the other constituent systems.…”

“…The required capability of the ABL, as described by Barton et al (2004), is to disable ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Depending on the type of threat missiles, operating environment, and other operational variables, many metrics exist for describing the capability of the ABL system.…”

“…In this work, we assume that the ABL capability of interest is its ability to disable threats from a range of 600 km. Tests and studies of the ABL have shown that 600 km is a reasonable performance goal (Barton et al, 2004). Hence, the achievable capability level of the ABL will be measured against this baseline value of engagement range.…”

“…This is an important performance parameter because it will dictate the time available to the laser to engage and disable the target during the boost phase. Based on the report by Barton et al (2004), an acceptable dwell time (the amount of time that the laser must deliver its energy) for a liquid-propelled missile is on the order of 4 to 5 seconds. This means that for a given raid size, the D&T system has a limited time to acquire the target and generate tracks.…”

“…The Strehl ratio is a measure of the quality of optics that compares the peak intensity at the detection point with a theoretical maximum intensity. While various factors contributed to the quantification of the Strehl ratio, Barton et al (2004) provide the simplified description:…”