Northrop Grumman Australia and Spiral Blue team up for missile defence
6 August 2024
A new iLAuNCH Trailblazer project aims to strengthen defence research in Australia by maturing a full stack missile detection capability.
Northrop Grumman Australia and Spiral Blue are working together on the project.
"We are bringing together Australian knowhow to build an advanced space surveillance system for missile defence tailored for deployment on small satellites,” said iLAuNCH Trailblazer Executive Director, Darin Lovett.
This mission aspires to cultivate a new sovereign capability for hypersonic missile detection through the fusion of cutting-edge infrared detection technology and industry-leading space-based artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) data processing techniques.
“Through mission engineering, we plan to rapidly progress promising future operational concepts up the TRL ladder. We will catalyse the expertise in hypersonic vehicle signatures, space-based detection technologies, and the use of AI/ML techniques for threat identification from our different project partners to inform the development of a discriminating capability to the end user,” said Northrop Grumman Australia’s Technology Outreach Manager, Dr Dushy Tissa.
Anticipated outcomes encompass hypersonic vehicle radiance and trajectory modelling, comprehensive design, and rigorous analysis of an infrared electro-optical system, by leveraging state-of-the-art infrared detectors and space edge AI/ML hardware and algorithms for on-board event detection.