The Subminiature Flight Safety System

Abstract

Weapons platform testing and monitoring have historically consisted of custom telemetry and flight safety system solutions tailored to the requirements (including Title 10 Mandates) and size constraints of individual platforms. The size of these individual components of these systems has necessitated that warhead replacement to facilitate insertion of these units to support test and evaluation activities. Currently there are no products available to meet these requirements in a miniaturized and modular package. L-3 Communications Telemetry East (L-3 TE) has developed an extensive background in providing solutions to gather vital missile and target information over the last several decades. Under the auspices of Eglin AFB, L-3 TE is leading a multi-disciplinary team to design and develop the Subminiature Flight Safety System (SFSS) to support existing and new weapons applications. SFSS is a universal, small, and low cost redundant flight termination system (FTS) that incorporates encoding, processing and TSPI capacities that provides critical health/safety/welfare monitoring and allows for highly efficient telemetering of all weapon application and FTS data. The SFSS is intended as a solution to allow weapon system developers, test agencies, and range safety officers the ability to track, monitor, and if necessary, terminate all types of weapon systems. It is designed to interface with newly developed weapon systems, while providing backward compatibility to meet existing requirements with minimal modifications to the weapon. The SFSS components are intended to significantly reduce the cost and improve the quality of test support by providing a highly integrated solution that minimizes physical intrusion into weapon systems, by eliminating the need for warhead removal. In addition, a common hardware platform will reduce overall system cost of acquisition and maintenance to the government, a key element in today's world of stressed budgets.