Countering missile threats ‘left of launch’

COLORADO SPRINGS – U.S. government agencies are working with industry to develop tools to disrupt missiles before they take flight, a timespan called ‘left of launch.’

“We’re looking at different aspects of the threat as it evolves,” Erich Hernandez-Baquero, Raytheon Intelligence and Space vice president of space intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, said at the Space Symposium. “Different types of capabilities, authorities and elements have to come into play, both operationally and in terms of mission capabilities, in order to stay on top of that threat, hold it at risk and ultimately defend against it.”

Effective missile defense will require diverse technologies, policies and strategies, a panel of experts said April 15.

“If you go far enough to the left, you are in the realm of foundational intelligence,” said Dan Chang, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory national security area executive. “As you get closer to the actual time of launch, you’re in the realm of indications and warnings.”

While these types of analyses are often carried out with different technologies and funded through distinct programs, “they have to work together in a timeline that sometimes will be very fast and sometimes might play out over a period of days,” Chang said. “It’s something that requires a lot of agility.”

Faster and Dimmer

U.S. defense and intelligence agencies are eager to evaluate missile capabilities. How fast can they travel, for example, and how bright or dim are their spectral signatures?

That type of information will help SDA establish the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a low‑Earth orbit constellation to warn of and track missiles “because our job really starts at launch,” said Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, U.S, Space Force Space Development Agency (SDA) director. “When we look at left of launch, it is understanding, science and knowledge.”

Earth-observation satellites that monitor activity around the world over days, weeks or months may shed light on evolving threats. For instance, Vantor’s Earth-observation constellation provides high-resolution electro-optical imagery.

“But there’s a lot of additional information that comes from combining visible imagery” with synthetic aperture radar, infrared and lidar “to provide context about activity around sites of interest,” said Matt Jenkins, Vantor chief space officer. “We want to track that, understand where it’s going, and provide information on where threats might come from.”

Multiple vendors gather remote sensing data through diverse phenomenologies. While that makes “fielding and engineering and integration harder,” it’s necessary to address “the holistic problem we face,” Sandhoo said. “The threat is going to get faster and dimmer. There is not a single solution.”

Once data on potential missile threats is obtained, speedy processing that combines artificial intelligence with large language models, real (or human) intelligence and physics models will be critical, Sandhoo said.

U.S. agencies also will be on the lookout for cyberattacks before and after any missiles launch. “The cyber domain, obviously, is going to be the key area of conflict” throughout the left-of-launch timeline, Hernandez-Baquero said.