Raytheon’s Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle is designed to crash directly into incoming missiles out of the sky, and it’s been successfully launched from from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The EKV boasts an advanced, multi-color sensor that detects and differentiates incoming warheads from other objects. It has its own propulsion, communications link, discrimination algorithms, guidance and control system and computers to support target selection and intercept. If a threat is detected, a Ground-Based Interceptor will be launched into space using a three-stage solid rocket booster, and once outside Earth’s atmosphere, operating at the edge of space at hypersonic speeds, the EKV’s job begins. Continue reading for another video and more information.
“Raytheon is simultaneously managing four kill vehicle programs – the EKV, Standard Missile-3 kinetic vehicle, Redesigned Kill Vehicle, and Multi-Object Kill Vehicle. The Raytheon kill vehicle family has a combined record of more than 30 successful space intercepts. Backed by decades of kill vehicle technology expertise, the Raytheon-made EKV is designed to destroy incoming ballistic missile threats by directly colliding with them, a concept often described as ‘hit to kill’,” reports The Daily Mail.
