The

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

Integrated Air and Missile Defense

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

Battle Command System (IBCS) is a plug-and-fight network intended to let a radar or any other defensive sensor feed its data to any available weapon—colloquially, "connect any sensor to any shooter".

ASA(ALT) The Office of the United States Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (ASA(ALT) pronounced ''A-salt'') is known as OASA(ALT). OASA(ALT) serves, when delegated, as the army acquisition executive, the senior pr ...

br>Weapon Systems Handbook 2018update
The IBCS is designed to link radars across thousands of miles and shoot down short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase.Daniel Cebul IBCS was designed to replace eight anti-ballistic missile defense command systems, including

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

Patriot missile The MIM-104 Patriot is a mobile interceptor missile surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, the primary such system used by the United States Army and several allied states. It is manufactured by the U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and derives it ...

engagement control station.Jen Judson (11 Oct 2018) Development began in 2004; 18 years later, IBCS completed initial operational test and evaluation (IOT&E). It was approved for full-rate production in 2023.

Requirements

Part of the Army's Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) effort,Theresa Hitchen
(11 Aug 2021) JROC's Next Target: 'Integrated Air & Missile Defense'
IAMD will eventually be subject to a

JROC Part of the United States Department of Defense acquisition process, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) reviews programs designated as JROC interest and supports the acquisition review process in accordance with law (). The JROC accomp ...

capability review —

John Hyten John Earl Hyten (born July 18, 1959) is a retired United States Air Force general who served as the 11th vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2021. A career space operations and acquisitions officer, he commanded the United St ...

. JADC2 will thus have to be harmonized with IAMD. IBCS aims to create an integrated network of air defense sensors that can interoperate with IBCS engagement control stations. Such sensors include AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel; AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR; AN/MPQ-53, AN/MPQ-65A and GhostEye (LTAMDS) in the Patriot missile system; GhostEye MR in

NASAMS NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, also known as Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) is a short- to medium-range ground-based air defense system developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) and RTX Corpor ...

;

AN/TPY-2 The AN/TPY-2 Surveillance Transportable Radar, also called the Forward Based X-Band Transportable (FBX-T) is a long-range, very high-altitude active digital antenna array X band surveillance radar designed to add a tier to existing missile and a ...

Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), formerly Theater High Altitude Area Defense, is an American anti-ballistic missile defense system designed to intercept and destroy short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in th ...

(THAAD) and

Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), previously National Missile Defense (NMD), is an anti-ballistic missile system implemented by the United States of America for defense against ballistic missiles, during the midcourse phase of ballistic t ...

(GMD);

AN/SPY-1 The AN/SPY-1 is a United States Navy passive electronically scanned array (PESA) 3D radar system manufactured by Lockheed Martin, and is a key component of the Aegis Combat System. The system is computer controlled and uses four complementary an ...

and

AN/SPY-6 The AN/SPY-6 is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) 3D radar system developed and built by RTX corporation, formerly Raytheon, and in service with the United States Navy (USN). It provides integrated air and missile defense for Flight ...

in Aegis BMD; and

AN/APG-81 The AN/APG-81 is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) fire-control radar system designed by Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (formerly Westinghouse Electronic Systems) for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. The AN/APG-81 is a su ...

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, supersonic Stealth aircraft, stealth strike fighters. A multirole combat aircraft designed for both Air superiority fighter, air superiority and att ...

.Jen Judso
(20 August 2019) US Missile Defense Agency boss reveals his goals, challenges on the job
Increase the discrimination of the radars and other sensors. Use Large aperture sensors. Use Space-based missile sensors. An SM-3 Block IIA missile test against ICBM is scheduled for 2020. Plan out the detection, control and engagement; the sensors, the command-and-control, the fire control, and the weapons (the kill vehicles). IBCS engagement stations will be able to control Army air-defense systems such as Patriot and THAAD, directing radar positioning and suggesting recommended launchers. Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps systems will be able only to share radar tracks or raw radar data. The Army requires all new missiles and air-defense systems to support IBCS.Sydney J. Freedberg Jr
New Missiles Must Work With IBCS Network: Bruce Jette (Exclusive)
. Breaking Defense. March 09, 2020

History

In 2010, the Army picked Northrop Grumman to be the prime contractor. In May 2015, the Army networked an S-280 engagement operations center with radar sensors and interceptor launchers for a test. Following Army doctrine, two interceptors were launched against a target missile, which was destroyed. In April 2016,Jen Judson (6 February 2017) IBCS demonstrated sensor fusion from disparate data streams, identification and tracking of targets, selection of appropriate kill vehicles, and interception of the targets, but the "IBCS software was 'neither mature nor stable'". In 2018, IBCS was projected to be at its initial operating capability in fiscal 2022. In January 2018, Lt. Gen. James H. Dickinson and Richard Formica suggested that a single unit might operate strategic fires and air/missile defense.Jason B. Cutshaw, USASMDC/ARSTRAT Public Affair
(30 January 2018) SMDC leader addresses national missile defense community
Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)
(28 Jan 2018) Distributed Defense: New Operational Concepts for Integrated Air and Missile Defense
2:40:56 James H. Dickinson SMDCAndrew Feickert, Specialist in Military Ground Forces, Congressional Research Service (CRS
(31 May 2022) The Army's Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF)
report IF11797 In May 2019, an IBCS Engagement Operations Center (EOC) was delivered to the Army at Huntsville, Alabama.Sydney J Freedber
(1 May 2019) IBCS: Northrop Delivers New Army Missile Defense Command Post
11 EOCs as well as 18 IBCS integrated fire control network (IFCN) relays by year-end 2019 In July 2019, the TRADOC capability manager (TCM) for Strategic Missile Defense (SMD) accepted the charter for

DOTMLPF DOTMLPF (pronounced "Dot-MiL-P-F") stands for doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities. It is used by the US Department of Defense and was defined in the Joint Capabilities Integration D ...

for the Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC/ARSTRAT).Jason Cutshaw, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Comman
(7.24.2019) SMDC colonel accepts TCM SMD Assumption of Charter
from AMD to SMD In August 2019 at

Reagan Test Site The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, commonly referred to as the Reagan Test Site (formerly Kwajalein Missile Range), is a missile test range in Marshall Islands (Pacific Ocean). It covers about and includes rocket launch s ...

on Kwajalein Atoll, THAAD Battery E-62 intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile using a radar that was well-separated from the interceptors and without knowing just when it had launched.MDA.mi
MDA NEWS Release (30 August 2019) THAAD System Successfully Intercepts Target in Missile Defense Flight Test
Flight Test THAAD (FTT)-23 image: https://www.mda.mil/global/images/system/thaad/FTT-23_THAAD_01.jpg at Kwajalein In the next test, Patriot interceptors were guided by THAAD radars, which have longer detection ranges than Patriot radars.Sydney J Freedberg

2020

From July (delayed from May by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

) to September 2020,

White Sands Missile Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area and firing range located in the US state of New Mexico. The range was originally established in 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, where the Trinity t ...

conducted a limited user test of IBCS.Sydney J. Freedberg Jr
(6 July 2020) IBCS: Army Launches Massive Army Missile Defense Test
LUT is prerequisite for a Milestone C decision in the acquisition process. In August 2020,Sydney J. Freedberg Jr
(13 August 2020) IBCS: Army Missile Defense Passes Most Complex Test Yet
an air-defense battalion integrated data from two sensors (Sentinel and Patriot radars) to overcome jamming and shoot down two drones (cruise missile surrogates) with two Patriot missiles. By 20 August 2020, IBCS was used to down two disparate threats in a test: a cruise missile and ballistic missile. The battalion then ran hundreds of drills simulating hundreds of threats, providing real-world data to check on

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

simulations of an array of physical scenarios amounting to hundreds of thousands of cases.Sydney J. Freedberg Jr
(21 August 2020) IBCS Defeats 2 Missiles in Flight – But 100s In Simulation
*Andrew Eversde
(20 August 2020) US Army buys two new supercomputers to meet data analytics demand
IBCS created a "single uninterrupted composite track of each threat" and handed off each threat for separate disposition by the air and missile defense's integrated fire control network (IFCN).Defense Brief Editoria
(20 August 2020) US Army IBCS intercepts ballistic, cruise missile targets in second LUT test
"IBCS integrated the data to form a single uninterrupted composite track of each threat, impossible with any single sensor, which then informed engagement solutions with the best interceptors to engage both incoming threats" The battalion used IBCS to detect, track, and intercept near-simultaneous low-altitude targets as well as a tactical ballistic missileCJ Robles Jen Judson (20 Aug 2020) The tests allowed Army doctrine to be updated to allow the launch of a single Patriot against a single target. As well, the battalion was tapped to run the Initial Operational Test & Evaluation (IOTE) in 2021Sydney J Freedber
(3 August 2020) Live-Fire Tests In August For Army Air & Missile Defense
and 2022. In September 2020, a joint cruise-missile-defense exercise demonstrated AI-based kill chains formulated in seconds. One of the kills was by a kinetic

projectile A projectile is an object that is propelled by the application of an external force and then moves freely under the influence of gravity and air resistance. Although any objects in motion through space are projectiles, they are commonly found ...

fired by a tracked howitzer based on the

M109 The M109 is an American 155 mm turreted Self-propelled artillery, self-propelled howitzer, first introduced in the early 1960s to replace the M44 self-propelled howitzer, M44 and M52 self-propelled howitzer, M52. It has been upgraded a number of ...

.Theresa Hitchens From 2009 to 2020, the Army spent $2.7 billion on the program.Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS)
vendor summary

2021

In 2021, the Army awarded a $1.4 billion contract to Northrop Grumman for the IBCS. At the Army's Project Convergence 2021 tech demonstration and experimentation event, IBCS was used to pass information from ground, air, and space sensors to a fire control system.Jen Judso
(19 Jan 2022) At Project Convergence, Army's new battle command system demonstrated expanded capability
IBCS passed sensor data from an F-35 to AFATDS (Army Field Artillery Tactical Data System), using the aircraft as a spotter for artillery fire.

Christine Wormuth Christine E. Wormuth (born April 19, 1969) is an American defense official and career civil servant who served as the United States Secretary of the Army, United States secretary of the Army from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (Un ...

br>(10.11.2021) AUSA 2021

2022

In February 2022, testers used IBCS to engage targets using various mixes of radars, interceptors, and fire control systems from the THAAD and Patriot systems.Jen Judso
(10 Mar 2022) Missile Defense Agency fires Patriot missile from THAAD system
For example, in a scenario where a THAAD system has to conserve its All-Up-Rounds, IBCS can calculate which targets are within the reach of its Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors, and fire those instead as needed.

2023

In April 2023, the IBCS was approved for full-rate production, after years of delays.

Raytheon GhostEye (Lower Tier Air and Missiles Defense Sensor)

Raytheon's new GhostEye radar (previously Lower Tier Air and Missiles Defense Sensor, LTAMDS) replaces the Patriot AN/SPY-65A radar. GhostEye will be able to feed raw sensor data to IBCS, and it will fit on a C-17 Globemaster.Sydney J. Freedberg Jr
(19 March 2020) Raytheon: Robotized Factory Speeds Up Army LTAMDS Radar
Avoids DoD5000 by using "Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and Section 804 Mid-Tier Acquisition processes" GhostEye is engineered to operate with much greater sensitivity, improved range and ability to track smaller, faster-moving targets. It uses three fixed 120-degree arrays to seamlessly find, discriminate and track fast-approaching threats using a 360-degree protection envelope. The arrays are overlapping to close "blind spots" and maintain a track if an attacking missile shifts course in flight. GhostEye can detect the precise shape, size, distance and speed of an approaching threat with high-fidelity sensor "pings"; its semiconductor gallium nitride (GaN) emitters allow increased resolution, accuracy, and power efficiency.Raytheon Missiles & Defens
(2 Oct 2020) Soldiers See – And Touch – Raytheon Technologies' Full-Scale GhostEye
in 4 Soldier TouchpointsAndrew Eversde
(11 Oct 2021) Raytheon Announces New Medium-Range Radar System
Defense New
(21 Oct 2021) GhostEye - Nothing Goes Unseen
GhostEye MR (medium range) introduced at AUSA, October 2021Patrick Tucke
(16 Nov 2023) New chip coated with man-made diamonds promises smaller, more powerful radars
GaN The fielding of four LTAMDS radars to a battalion is expected in 2023.Jen Judson
(2 May 2022) US Army scrambles to keep its new air-defense radar on schedule
1st of 4 LTAMDS radars will enter testing at WSMR in April 2022; 4 radars will be fielded to an LTAMDS battalion by December 2023 to meet the Congressional mandate.Andrew Eversde
(14 Oct 2022) Raytheon aims to finish LTAMDS radar prototypes for Army in January
6th radar In August 2024, the Army awarded Raytheon a $2 billion low-rate initial production contract for the LTAMDS radar through November 2028.Ashley Rocqu
(2 Aug 2024) Army awards Raytheon $2 billion to begin LTAMDS production
/ref>

The Indirect fire protection capability (IFPC)

The Indirect fire protection capability (IFPC)Congressional Research Service (CRS
(6 Jun 2023) The U.S. Army’s Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) System
research report IF12421

Multi-Mission Launcher The Multi-Mission Launcher (MML) is an open-systems architecture multi-role missile launching system created by the United States Army's Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center. Development The MML has its roots in t ...

(MML) will have fielded 50 kW lasers on StrykersRyan Pickrel
(5 June 2019) The US Army says it will have hypersonic missiles and laser weapons ready for combat in less than 4 years
in 2021 and 2022 to two battalions per year.Sydney J. Freedberg Jr
(7 March 2019) US 'Gets Its Ass Handed To It' In Wargames: Here's A $24 Billion Fix
Army prepositioned stocks (APS) vulnerability In late FY2024 an integrated test of LTAMDS, IFPC, and IBCS is planned.Jen Judso
(28 Mar 2023) US Army plans test for combining new air defense capabilities
FY2024 IAMD: Test Planned for LTAMDS, IFPC, and IBCSJen Judso
(16 Aug 2023) International interest growing for Army's battle command system
IBCS Although in August 2019 the

Missile Defense Agency The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is a component of the Federal government of the United States, United States government's United States Department of Defense, Department of Defense responsible for developing a comprehensive Missile defense, defe ...

(MDA) cancelled the $5.8 billion contract for the Redesigned kill vehicle (RKV),Paul McCleary Theresa Hitchens
(17 December 2019) Lawmakers Question R&E Oversight; Pump MDA Funding
RKV cancellation is prompting a

National Defense Authorization Act The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is any of a series of United States federal laws specifying the annual budget and expenditures of the U.S. Department of Defense. The first NDAA was passed in 1961. The U.S. Congress oversees the de ...

mandate for a federally funded R&D center (

Federally funded research and development centers Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) are public-private partnerships that conduct research and development for the United States Government. Under Federal Acquisition Regulationbr>§ 35.017 FFRDCs are operated by univers ...

- FFRDC) study, whether to move the oversight of MDA * Theresa Hitchen
(17 December 2019) Hill To Griffin: No Moving The SCO; Shifts It to DepSecDef Norquist
Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO)Paul McClear
(6 September 2019) Pentagon Issues Classified RFP For New Missile Interceptor
No Refund of Monies expected. Rework is To Be Determined the Army's 100th Missile Defense Brigade will continue to use the Exo-Atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV). The current

Ground-based Midcourse Defense Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), previously National Missile Defense (NMD), is an anti-ballistic missile system implemented by the United States of America for defense against ballistic missiles, during the midcourse phase of ballistic t ...

(GMD) programs continue per plan, with 64 ground-based interceptors (GBIs) in the missile fields for 2019 planned. Command and Control Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC), was developed by the Missile defense agency (as a development organization) and is integrated with GMD, as demonstrated by FTG-11 on 25 March 2019.AUS
(12 Mar 2020) Army SMD Hot Topic 2020 - VADM Jon Hill - Dir, Missile Defense Agency
In March 2021, the decision to approve further development of the Next Generation Interceptor was on the agenda for the 35th Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. Hicks has extensive background in defense modernization. The 28th Secretary of Defense

Lloyd Austin Lloyd James Austin III (born August 8, 1953) is a retired United States Army four-star General (United States), general who served as the 28th United States Secretary of Defense, United States secretary of defense from 2021 to 2025. Before ...

has recused himself from acquisition matters.Paul McCleary
(12 Mar 2021) New Missile Defense Program On Deputy SecDef's Desk, Awaiting Approval
20 GBIs are planned.Aaron Mehta (12 September 2021
"US Successfully Tests New Homeland Missile Defense Capability
MDA's "2-/3-Stage selectable GBI" Breaking Defense

References

{{Reflist Army air defence Computer systems of the United States Army