AST, SM-3 successfully track missiles in test

17 Jun 2002

The Boeing (Seattle, Washington) Airborne Surveillance Testbed (AST) aircraft has successfully tracked two U.S. Navy missiles with the Navy's new Captive Carry SM-3 seeker built by Raytheon Missile Systems (Tucson, Arizona). The infrared sensor, installed in the AST's cupola, is being tested in support of the Navy's Theater-Wide Missile program. The target missiles were launched from the Kauai Test Facility in Hawaii; the sensor acquired and tracked the targets using missile tracks developed by range radar and transmitted the data to the AST, which used its primary sensor to collect data on both launches to validate the data captured by the SM-3 seeker.