bobbymike

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Multipurpose NanoMissile System The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s (SMDC’s) Multipurpose NanoMissile System has a very simple design. The core vehicle is an integrated booster airframe and fuel tank containing a benign bi-propellant mix of ethane and nitrous oxide, and utilizes a current launcher and hardware already in the Army inventory. This includes both the M270 and High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers for the Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). In addition, the core NanoMissile booster can be augmented with strap-on solid rocket boosters (SRBs) developed from surplus Army MLRS rockets when used for launches to LEO. Furthermore, NanoMissile can potentially be used for long-range (up to intercontinental ranges) precision strike with small conventional warheads.
<blockquote>NanoMissile is designed to carry small payloads, such as the new Nanosatellites, into LEO, and has the ability to also fly suborbital and sounding missions. Suborbital mission costs range from roughly $277,000 up to $1 million, with orbital missions holding steady at about $1 million per launch.</blockquote> If bought in quantity, the NanoMissile core itself can be purchased for as little as $150,000. This price tag adds to the NanoMissile’s appeal, since the U.S. Air Force and NASA launches cost in the multiple millions (sometimes 30 to 50 times more).
NanoMissile’s dramatically low cost makes it an economically viable alternative to legacy-based booster systems, which is only one of its advantages for potential launch clients.

Add to this the ability to launch from the back of an existing M270/HIMARS transporter/erector/launcher (TEL) or even a Mk. 41 vertical launch system (VLS) on a warship, and the flexibility and value of the NanoMissile concept becomes clearer. Finally, there is incredible simplicity through the creative use of mature/legacy technologies, which feeds into two things every launch customer desires: a predictable and reliable ride for their payload(s) to LEO.

Return of an Army Capability While the U.S. Army led in the development of missile technology after World War II, that leadership role was relinquished with the advent of NASA and the Air Force’s development and command of the nation’s ICBM arsenal. Although the Army is presently the largest U.S. consumer of missile defense and space technologies, and has the largest arsenal of missiles and rockets of all the services, the Army traditionally uses its missile/rocket force as weapons platforms, not as tools designed to test, exercise, and deploy key missile defense programs and space technologies. NanoMissile is intended to fulfill that need and be the designated missile for such tests and exercises.

The NanoMissile is about the diameter of a basketball hoop at 24 inches, with the booster standing about 12 feet high. The rocket’s modularity could make it useful not only as a launch vehicle but potentially as a missile defense target, sounding rocket, and hypersonic test vehicle as well. One other area of growing interest is to convert the NanoMissile core into a hypersonic heavy air-to-ground missile, for use on UAVs and strike aircraft, or even an intercontinental conventional strike weapon.

When coupled with the new generation of Nanosatellites, the Army and other launch customers can potentially deploy swarms of small satellites to form constellations over the battlefield. John London, the director of the Nanosatellite technology programs at SMDC, said, “One of the reasons we like satellites of this class is we can afford to put a lot of them up there to where the entire constellation is still relatively inexpensive. If one satellite up there fails, and I need to replace it with a $300,000 satellite in a very specific orbit, and the lowest cost launch vehicle out there is at least 30 to 50 times the cost of that spacecraft, that won’t work.” With a low-cost launch system like NanoMissile, possessing qualities like tactical mobility and rapid launch preparation, such hopes by field commanders may finally be fulfilled.
 
Much as I hate to say it, "if it sounds too good to be true. . ."
 
Not sure what Nano has to do w/ it..the sateillite payloads aren't really Nano.. but AF concern about Army grabbing at the their jobjar will be > Nano.
 
jsport said:
Not sure what Nano has to do w/ it..the sateillite payloads aren't really Nano.. but AF concern about Army grabbing at the their jobjar will be > Nano.

It's got both "nano" and "hypersonic", both mandatory buzzwords. I'm surprised they didn't manage to shoe-horn in "cyber" and "game changing".
 
sferrin said:
jsport said:
Not sure what Nano has to do w/ it..the sateillite payloads aren't really Nano.. but AF concern about Army grabbing at the their jobjar will be > Nano.

It's got both "nano" and "hypersonic", both mandatory buzzwords. I'm surprised they didn't manage to shoe-horn in "cyber" and "game changing".

Don't start giving them ideas ;D
 
Come 2018 something like 350,000 M26 MLRS rockets and five hundred odd Army Tactical Missiles will become unusable due to Congressional restrictions on the employment of cluster weapons with dud rates over 1%. Already large numbers of M26 have been removed from the active stockpile because no possible chance exists that they'll be fired, due to so many MLRS systems being removed from any form of service. The peak stockpile was around 650,000 rockets I think. Very few have actually been dismantled.


That's why the cost can be so low, these huge piles of rocket motors and airframes were already paid for. Launching them off existing MLRS launchers sounds like total nonsense though. Weight wise it might be okay, but the length and width would be a serious problem. Building new semi trailer launchers would be no big deal though, compared to paying for the R&D test flights.


A side issue is, it looks like many of the proposed configurations would completely break the INF treaty, unless based at sea, if used as a weapon. It looks like a lot of this is more about providing low cost MRBM and IRBM targets for ABM testing, which are legal, then weapons.
 
Sea Skimmer said:
A side issue is, it looks like many of the proposed configurations would completely break the INF treaty, unless based at sea, if used as a weapon. It looks like a lot of this is more about providing low cost MRBM and IRBM targets for ABM testing, which are legal, then weapons.

Read an article somewhere that both Russia and the US are discussing changes to the INF Treaty due to there being no restrictions on countries like China, India, Pakistan, Iran, etc. leaving them at a military disadvantage.

I would like to see the treaty abrogated and the US develop a medium range prompt global strike missile with a hyper-accurate warhead to hit high value and fleeting targets.
 
Lets make that

"medium range prompt global strike 'cruise' missile with a hyper-accurate warhead to hit high value and fleeting targets. " ;)
 

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