VIDEO: F-35 DAS as Missile Defense Sensor

Aviation Week and Space Technology ^ | 11/2/2010 | Graham Warwick

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

You read the story back in September, that Northrop Grumman's AAQ-47 distributed aperture system (DAS) for the F-35 tracked SpaceX's first Falcon 9 booster launch during a test flight on the company's BAC One-Eleven testbed. The feat was hailed as showing the 360-deg, multi-camera IR sensor's potential for use in missile defense.

Now you can judge for yourself, as Northrop has released video from the June flight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZrvAFRhQZc

The blurb with the release says:

"The video generated by DAS during the flight test has been magnified 10 times to allow clearer viewing of the rocket. Unlike other sensors, DAS detects and tracks the rocket at horizon-break without the aid of external cues. DAS algorithms continuously track the rocket through first-stage burnout, second-stage ignition, across DAS sensor boundaries, and through the rocket's second-stage burnout at a distance

[Steely Tom]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZrvAFRhQZc.

[ASOC]

So, they built an IR system that can track the heat of a rocket exhaust plume. Meh. The same system can 'see' the returning (inbound) rocket body - a little more impressive.

That it does this as part of a moving, airborne, multicamera. integrated weapons system, one 'smart' enough to call the launch - now that's pretty impressive.

Contractor lit