Developing a remote staring sensor for optimizing successful boost phase intercept

Interception of large missile systems during their boost phase has been a goal of the United States Defense industry for quite some time. Due to a variety of technical obstacles, however, defense scientists have focused their energy upon developing systems that are capable of intercepting the missiles in mid-course; so the boost phase interception (BPI) objective has, until recently, remained on the sidelines. Shortly following the change in Administration in January, 2001, it was announced that the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) would begin actively developing BPI capabilities. Although, perhaps, this change in agenda is primarily attributable to the different priorities of the respective Administrations, it may also be due in part to recent advances in remote sensing technologies. In this paper, we describe a theoretical space-based sensor that will be capable of cueing retaliatory forces in time for successful BPI. The specifications for the sensor in this theoretical system are developed using modeled missile signatures and scene data from the LANDSAT 7 sensor.