Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company, completed a Critical Design Review for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command’s Missile Track Custody, or MTC, program mission payload.
“This initial CDR process marks 18 months of hard design work that is necessary to build the next generation of affordable OPIR sensors that can detect and maintain custody of emerging missile threats,” stated Lt Col Gary Goff, materiel leader, Resilient Missile Warning/Tracking/Defense Space, Resilient Missile Warning/Tracking/Defense Acquisition Delta, Space Systems Command’s (SSC) Space Sensing (SN) Directorate.
The MTC payload takes advantage of five years of development work at Boeing, employing high levels of on-board track autonomy to enable exceptional booster and hypersonic glide vehicle target detection and tracking.
“We’re marching forward to meet the threat,” said Jason Kim, chief executive officer, Millennium Space Systems. “We developed a world-class system and digital model that gives our customer the ability to accurately track hypersonic glide vehicles and modern threats.”
Millennium will transition into space and ground segment development for a projected launch in 2026. As shown during the mission payload CDR, a wholly-digital engineering environment will continue to be employed to shorten design cycles and further reduce cost.
The initial contract delivers and validates missile tracking designs and verifies predicted performance. MTC is paving the way for operational systems and is key to SSC’s digital engineering strategy – the “try before you buy” approach.
