The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) C-MANPADS (Counter-Man Portable Air Defense System) Program seeks means of protecting commercial aircraft from attacks by terrorists armed with anti-aircraft shoulder-fired missiles. DHS launched its C-MANPADS initiative in January 2004, tasking several defense industry contractors, including Northrop Grumman Corporation, with adapting existing military missile-defense technology for this protective role in commercial aviation. Northrop Grumman’s entry in C-MANPADS is Guardian™, a countermeasures system that uses laser jamming technology to disrupt guidance signals of incoming missiles. The system has successfully undergone two initial testing phases of the DHS program and is now being tested in regular commercial cargo flights.
Mission Requirements
The commercial aviation industry needs a defense against the shoulder-fired, heat seeking missile designated MANPADS, because this system’s ease of use, ready availability and low cost have made it the terrorist’s weapon of choice.
MANPADS first appeared in military operations in Vietnam (e.g., the U.S. Red Eye and the Soviet Strela – codenamed SA-7 by NATO).
Little time passed before the weapon fell into the hands of terrorists, who used it first against military targets and later against civilian airplanes. The most familiar civilian attacks are the 2002 attempt against an Israeli airliner in Mombasa, Kenya and the 2003 shoot down of a DHL Airbus departing the Baghdad Airport. According to the U.S. government, approximately 40 civilian airplanes have been attacked by the MANPADS since 1972, with approximately 600 fatalities.
Terrorists are drawn to the MANPADS because it is lightweight, easily concealed and simple to operate. These characteristics derive from its orginal role as a highly-portable, effective weapon that gave military ground units an easy, rapid means of engaging enemy aircraft on the battlefield.
Once fired, the missile guides on target aircraft by means of the heat the engines produce and doesn’t require the operator to maintain track. After the weapon is launched, the operator merely removes the grip stock and discards the launch tube. The shooter can then leave the scene – or, alternatively, pick up another round, attach the grip stock and fire another missile.
Terrorists have little difficulty obtaining this dangerous weapon. The State Department estimates that more than a million MANPADS have been manufactured by over 20 countries – and that many are still available on the black market, in some cases for as little as $5,000.
One lesson of 9/11, with its multiple cascading impacts, is that a successful shoulder-fired missile attack on a commercial U.S. aircraft would mean not only loss of life but also enormous problems for the U.S. economy.
Such an attack could cripple demand for air travel, trade and tourism and send an already fragile industry spiraling into bankruptcy. A study by the research agency Rand estimates that the effect on the broader economy from a single MANPADS attack could reach $70 billion.
Despite the great magnitude of the threat, adoption of the laser jammer technology for airliners has been delayed not only by the substantial testing requirement, but also by concern about the cost of the system.
DHS has mandated that this cost can be no higher than $1 million per airplane at the 1000th system point in production – but the feasibility of an investment of this size, at least if extended to protecting a large portion of the U.S. commercial fleet, is being questioned by officials both in government and industry.
Thus, work continues on efforts to reduce the cost both of acquiring and maintaining the system.
Capabilities Needed
At the same time, largely because of the cost issue, the government is investigating alternative possibilities for dealing with the MANPADS threat.
Methods not relying on technology include cracking down on the sale of shoulder-fired missiles abroad and improving security measures to reduce their entry into the U.S.
But DHS is also giving consideration to anti-missile technologies other than onboard countermeasures.
For instance, Northrop Grumman has developed a ground-based system that could be located near airports to provide anti-missile protection for airliners. This Skyguard system (left) would use radar to detect a MANPADS and then destroy its missile using a chemical-fueled high-energy laser.
A second approach, to be studied under DHS’s Project Chloe initiative, would rely on UAVs flying above U.S. airports at the 50,000-foot level to find and defeat shoulder-fired missiles launched at arriving and departing aircraft.
Although one or both of these approaches might turn out to provide valuable protections while costing less than the onboard systems of DHS’s counter-MANPADS program, neither of them offers a genuine substitute.
Ground based systems at airports cannot protect aircraft over all the long arrival and departure corridors within which they fly low enough (15,000 feet) to be reached by MANPADS; and even UAVs cannot, of course, protect aircraft flying in other nations’ airspace.
Of anti-missile remedies now being considered, only the onboard laser-jamming system can provide worldwide protection – in fact, it can provide a powerful worldwide deterrent even if used for just part of the commercial fleet, because terrorists will never know which aircraft are being protected.
Northrop Grumman Solution
Northrop Grumman is the only participant in DHS’s Counter-MANPADS program that produces a laser-based countermeasures system now being used in combat. Northrop Grumman has been developing systems to defeat the MANPAD threat for the military for more than 40 years.
The company’s current Directional Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) system is installed on more than 350 military aircraft representing 33 aircraft types, both fixed and rotary wing. Its effectiveness has been proven in combat against actual MANPADS attacks – the system provides a very robust defense against these missiles, diverting even the most capable of them.
Northrop Grumman’s Guardian system adapts the company’s laser-based DIRCM military technology for commercial use. The technology has been repackaged into an airline friendly system that can be bolted onto a commercial airliner in as little as 10 minutes, once the airplane has been modified to accept the system. And, of course, as an onboard system, Guardian provides protection no matter where the airplane flies.
Operation of the system is as follows: through an array of sensors that gives Guardian a full 360 degree field of view, the system detects a threatening object approaching the airplane. Guardian passes the detection information to a special infrared camera that locks onto the threat and tracks it. The system’s electronic brain then runs a series of tests to confirm that the object being tracked is actually a missile rather than merely something on the ground that appears to be a threat, such as a sun glint from a glass-clad building.
The system will disregard such “background clutter” – but will jam the guidance signal of a threatening missile by transmitting an invisible beam of eye-safe infrared energy produced by a small laser. This beam introduces a false target into the missile’s guidance system, causing the weapon to abruptly turn away from the airplane.
The whole protective process occurs in 2 to 3 seconds, without requiring the aircraft’s pilot to take any action. Once the system commences jamming, it notifies the pilot that it is nullifying an attack – and also reports the event to the air traffic control system so that appropriate DHS procedures can be initiated.
Recently, the Northrop Grumman system completed a 16-month flight test program in commercial operational environments that included the use of a ground-based electronic missile surrogate to simulate shoulder-fired missile attacks on airliners. In every test, the Guardian system performed flawlessly.
Currently, Guardian is being flown on nine FedEx cargo airplanes to test the system in routine operations. In addition, in October of 2006, Congress directed DHS to expand its counter-MANPADS program to include "a service evaluation in the passenger-carrying environment.” Thus, about a dozen passenger jets operated by major airlines will be outfitted with temporary missile defenses and used to gather data on whether the systems create any operational difficulties for these businesses.
Northrop Grumman is also making considerable progress in its work to reduce the cost of the system.
The company believes it will be under the $1 million per system threshold set by DHS much earlier in the production run than the 1000th system point specified by the agency (perhaps after producing only 200-300 units).
Another factor affecting price is that not all airplanes in the U.S. commercial fleet would have to be equipped with Guardian at all times. Of the approximately 4,000 airplanes that might qualify for protection, some are in a non-flying mode for maintenance or other purposes, while others are flying in regions where the probability of a terrorist attack is extremely low. Thus, use of Guardian , which is transportable from one airplane to another, could be limited just to in-service aircraft requiring protection for higher-risk routes.
The Northrop Grumman price includes modification of the host airplane, training and the documentation that goes with the system. The company has demonstrated to DHS that the cost to build, maintain and operate the systems over their required 20 year lives can be covered by a one dollar charge per passenger, or about the same cost as the snack and beverage that airlines currently provide.
Investment by the U.S. and British governments in technology for protecting commercial airplanes now totals nearly $1 billion. Northrop Grumman alone has invested more than $100 million in this countermeasures technology, building on its combat-proven military systems that are protecting the lives of American and Allied soldiers every day. The company is proud to be part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security effort that may in the future extend this capability to the flying public.
The commercial aviation industry needs a defense against the shoulder-fired, heat seeking missile designated MANPADS, because this system’s ease of use, ready availability and low cost have made it the terrorist’s weapon of choice. 
Once fired, the missile guides on target aircraft by means of the heat the engines produce and doesn’t require the operator to maintain track. After the weapon is launched, the operator merely removes the grip stock and discards the launch tube. The shooter can then leave the scene – or, alternatively, pick up another round, attach the grip stock and fire another missile. 
For instance, Northrop Grumman has developed a ground-based system that could be located near airports to provide anti-missile protection for airliners. This Skyguard system (left) would use radar to detect a MANPADS and then destroy its missile using a chemical-fueled high-energy laser. 
Northrop Grumman is the only participant in DHS’s Counter-MANPADS program that produces a laser-based countermeasures system now being used in combat. Northrop Grumman has been developing systems to defeat the MANPAD threat for the military for more than 40 years. 
Operation of the system is as follows: through an array of sensors that gives Guardian a full 360 degree field of view, the system detects a threatening object approaching the airplane. Guardian passes the detection information to a special infrared camera that locks onto the threat and tracks it. The system’s electronic brain then runs a series of tests to confirm that the object being tracked is actually a missile rather than merely something on the ground that appears to be a threat, such as a sun glint from a glass-clad building. 
Recently, the Northrop Grumman system completed a 16-month flight test program in commercial operational environments that included the use of a ground-based electronic missile surrogate to simulate shoulder-fired missile attacks on airliners. In every test, the Guardian system performed flawlessly.