Integrated Military Systems (IMS) conceptualizes and demonstrates advanced technologies, delivers responsive technical solutions in anticipation of needs, and facilitates the integration and sustainment of operational capabilities across missile, air, and space defense missions.
Capabilities
Threat Modeling and Analysis
IMS combines principles of engineering and lethality assessments to model and analyze missile threats and determine the effectiveness of defensive systems designed to defeat them. Heavily leveraging Sandia’s legacy nuclear weapons work in both threat and lethality modeling and analysis, IMS engineers apply over six decades of experience to target lethality assessments. These experts assess a threat’s flight characteristics by conducting detailed analyses of its mechanical and system designs. Then, using high-performance computing to model the complex physics of high velocity impacts between kinetic weapons and re-entry vehicles such as high explosive initiation and structural breakup, IMS develops a comprehensive picture of the defensive system’s effectiveness.
Prototype Rocket and Missile Technologies
IMS delivers rapid-response and agile system-level design, development, and demonstrations of advanced interceptor and deterrent systems to address critical national needs. Leveraging the success of over 100 instrumented flight vehicles and concept studies of many more, IMS has the personnel and expertise to design and integrate flight vehicles and supporting mechanical systems such as payloads, targets, countermeasures, and boosters to support a variety of missions. Every phase of the product delivery cycle is optimized to provide hardware on extremely short timelines to meet the needs of the center’s defense customers.
Missile Fielding and Launch Operations: The Kauai Test Facility
IMS operates and maintains the Kauai Test Facility (KTF), a high-value and high-performing asset for DOE/NNSA and a vital test range for the country. KTF provides a high quality facility for conducting a wide range of missile and sounding rocket test operations on-ground, in the upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, and in space. These experiments support materials research, components development, advanced re-entry vehicle technologies, water entry-and-recovery systems, missile defense testing, and on-board sensor R&D testing.
Space Programs
IMS supports its defense customers’ efforts in space by assessing performance and design trades of space sensing architectures for midcourse acquisition, tracking, and discrimination of missile threats. Additionally, IMS teams have the capability to provide a cost-effective solution for placing technologies into orbit for short-term applications.