Middle Earth Orbit Missile Tracking Payload Passes Critical Design Review - Raytheon

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th November, 2022) Raytheon Intelligence and Space's sensor payload for the US Space Force's Missile Track Custody program for use in tracking objects in middle Earth orbit has passed its critical design review on schedule, the company announced in a press release on Tuesday.

"Raytheon Intelligence and Space's sensor payload, for the US Space Force's Missile Track Custody (MTC) program, recently passed the tailored mission payload critical design review on schedule. The MTC program seeks to deploy initial warfighter capability for missile tracking at MEO," the release said.

The US Space Force established the MTC program to accelerate the fielding of a resilient persistent detection and missile tracking capability from MEO, the release said.

"Our country faces new and diverse missile threats that require a layered approach to detection, tracking and defense.

Using the latest digital engineering techniques, we've successfully completed key design elements of the fully compliant payload design in just under 18 months," the release said.

The US military at present carry out their missile warning and tracking from highly-elliptical and geostationary orbits and they plan to expand the capability to low Earth orbit in the coming years, the release added.

MTC will provide another layer to the missile warning, missile defense and missile tracking architecture that provides the ability to detect and maintain custody of emerging missile threats, while also providing large area coverage with fewer sensors than Low earth Orbit (LEO) solutions, according to the release.