The Network Centric Airborne Defense Element (NCADE) was an

anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to Missile defense, destroy in-flight ballistic missiles. They achieve this explosively (chemical or nuclear), or via hit-to-kill Kinetic projectile, kinetic vehicles, which ma ...

system being developed by

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 ...

for 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 ...

. On September 18, 2008 Raytheon announced it had been awarded a $10 million contract to continue NCADE research and development. The NCADE system is a

boost phase A ballistic missile goes through several distinct phases of flight that are common to almost all such designs. They are, in order: * boost phase when the main boost rocket or upper stages are firing; * post-boost phase when any last-minute change ...

interceptor based heavily on the

AIM-120 AMRAAM The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) ( ) is an American Beyond-visual-range missile, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. It uses active transmit-receive radar guidance ...

, with the AMRAAM fragmentation warhead replaced by a

hit-to-kill A kinetic energy weapon (also known as kinetic weapon, kinetic energy warhead, kinetic warhead, kinetic projectile, kinetic kill vehicle) is a projectile weapon based solely on a projectile's kinetic energy to inflict damage to a target, inst ...

vehicle powered by a

hydroxylammonium nitrate Hydroxylammonium nitrate or hydroxylamine nitrate (HAN) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a salt derived from hydroxylamine and nitric acid. In its pure form, it is a colourless hygroscopic solid. It has potential to be us ...

-based

monopropellant rocket A monopropellant rocket (or "monochemical rocket") is a rocket that uses a single chemical as its propellant. Monopropellant rockets are commonly used as small attitude and trajectory control rockets in satellites, rocket upper stages, crewed spac ...

engines from

Aerojet Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp, ...

. On December 3, 2007,

AIM-9X The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a short-range air-to-air missile. Entering service with the United States Navy in 1956 and the Air Force in 1964, the AIM-9 is one of the oldest, cheapest, and most successful air-to-air missiles. Its latest variants rema ...

missiles with installed NCADE

infrared seeker Infrared homing is a passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it seamlessly. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers" since infrared is ra ...

was tested against the

Orion Orion may refer to: Common meanings * Orion (constellation), named after the mythical hunter * Orion (mythology), a hunter in Greek mythology Arts and media Fictional entities Characters and species * Orion (character), a DC Comics c ...

target rocket launched from

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 ...

. Missiles were launched from the

F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it e ...

of the Air National Guard Air Force Reserve Command Test Center. One modified AIM-9X intercepted the target rocket and the other observed the intercept while also being on intercept trajectory. On April 2008, Aerojet completed a full-duration test firing of an axial thruster for the second stage of NCADE. Thruster provided more than 660 N of thrust for more than 25 seconds. The launch vehicle would be a Boeing F-15C Golden Eagle with an

AESA radar An active electronically scanned array (AESA) is a type of phased array antenna, which is a computer-controlled antenna array in which the beam of radio waves can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving the ant ...

. NCADE is listed as "Discontinued" on the website of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

References

Anti-ballistic missiles of the United States Air-to-air missiles of the United States Raytheon Company products Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States {{Missile-stub