97 Modeling of Boost-Phase Ground Based Interception against Long and Mid Range Attacking Ballistic Misiles

Developing a weapon that can be utilized to intercept and destroy a ballistic missile during the boost phase of its flight is the first step in eliminating the threat of the attacking ballistic missile. Boost phase interception is considered successful, when a complete destruction of the missile and its on board munitions is achieved. Various weapon systems have been developed for boost phase interception of ballistic missiles. This work is applied to one of these systems which is the ground-based intercept missile. The requirements for the interceptor effectiveness will be discussed. The work is based on simulated engagements between the attacking ballistic missile and the interceptor employing proportional navigation for the guidance law. The distance between the target missile warhead and the interceptor at the end of engagement, which is called the miss distance, is calculated as a measure of the interceptor performance. The effect of changing the navigation ratio on the acceleration requirement and the total flight time for the interceptor to attain minimum miss distance is illustrated. The Matlab programming environment is used to carry out the mathematical analysis and plotting the output results.