QinetiQ, in partnership with the US Department of Defense (DoD) and White Sands Missile Range High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF), has conducted successful flights of the first two Rattler Supersonic Target (ST) MkIs, the company announced on 20 March 2024.
Powered by a solid-propellant rocket motor, the Rattler ST can achieve air launch speeds over Mach 2.5, supports corkscrew and weave manoeuvres and is available as a mounted payload option on the Banshee Jet 80+ aerial target.
Emulating a variety of advanced missile threats, the Rattler ST is a cost-effective target platform designed for threat replication, operational training and system evaluation. QinetiQ is customising the platform to support the US DoD’s High Energy Laser Measurement (HELM) Rattler Program, integrating a third-party target board to measure high-energy laser characteristics in flight, at supersonic speeds.
The USD 10 million (EUR 9.2 million) programme started in February 2022 and is due to conclude in mid-2024.
“This flight represents an important milestone in the Rattler transition to service project and demonstrates our supersonic target capability in action for our US customer, as part of the HELM Rattler program, to meet the requirement for evolving threats,” Graham Ollis, QinetiQ’s managing director for threat representation, was quoted as saying in a company press release.
Owen Price, QinetiQ’s project manager for target systems, added, “I am proud of the significant progress we’ve made with our development partners and customer in fielding this flight trial. We have been able to showcase QinetiQ’s technical and operational expertise and teamwork, launching the new Rattler ST MkI product and as part of developing the HELM Rattler test and evaluation target system for the warfighter, as requirements for more realistic, instrumented threat representation become ever more important.”
QinetiQ’s portfolio of targets are built in line with customers’ requirements to meet the current and evolving threats they are needing to defend and train against, delivering realistic representations of those threats.
