Ramona Adams
Orbital ATK and the Missile Defense Agency have demonstrated the company’s updated MK 136 Third Stage Rocket Motor nozzle aboard Raytheon‘s Standard Missile Block IB at the U.S. Navy‘s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii.
The company said Tuesday the missiles were fired from a Navy Aegis destroyer off the coast of Kauai to test the updated nozzle’s support for SM-3 Block IB in various flight scenarios.
MDA and SM-3 manufacturer Raytheon evaluated the missile and TSRM during the May exercise.
TSRM is designed to feature multiple propellant grains for varied inter-pulse delays; thrust vector control nozzle and an attitude control system to aid the threat interception of SM-3 Block IB guided missiles, Orbital ATK noted.
