Lockheed Martin has received a $53 million technology risk reduction contract to improve seekers, avionics, and system integration for the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MKV), the Missile Defense Agency announced on March 9. MKV is a ballistic missile defense system carried on board an interceptor missile and is designed to destroy multiple incoming missiles, including decoys, at the same time. The MKV development program was active in the mid-2000s but was delayed in 2009 when then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reshaped the Pentagon budget and cut funding for missile defense programs. But in 2015, Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed were each given $9 million proof-of-concept contracts. Raytheon already built the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, which is part of the Ground-Based Interceptor system deployed in 2010. The EKV has successfully demonstrated its ability to destroy a single ballistic missile in three ground-based launch tests.
B-21 Temporary Shelters Could Also Shelter B-2s
March 5, 2021
The Air Force's experimental runway shelter for the new B-21 bomber is large enough to cover it or the B-2, and therefore reveals no information about the dimensions of the new aircraft. Two such shelters will be evaluated, but the maker of the second version hasn't been chosen yet.