Exo-atmospheric missile intercept system employing tandem interceptors to overcome unfavorable sun positions

A method of avoiding sun degradation of a light sensitive sensor in the kill vehicles of an exo-atmospheric single site contract kill vehicle system including:

• determining when the light sensitive sensor of a contact kill vehicle will be pointed toward the sun during a terminal phase of an interception of a reentry vehicle;
• launching a surrogate kill vehicle and a contact kill vehicle at different times, wherein only the contact kill vehicle is launched during a proper intercept time period, whereby the contact kill vehicle follows a similar trajectory to that of the surrogate kill vehicle;
• acquiring a threat complex of the reentry vehicle with the light sensitive sensor of the surrogate kill vehicle;
• resolving the reentry vehicle in the threat complex from other components of the threat complex with the light sensitive sensor of the surrogate kill vehicle;
• tracking the reentry vehicle with the light sensitive sensor of the surrogate kill vehicle;
• providing intercept data to the contact kill vehicle from the surrogate kill vehicle;
• and
• using the intercept data in the contact kill vehicle to guide the contact kill vehicle to intercept of the reentry vehicle.

A method of avoiding degradation of radiation sensitive sensors of interceptors due to intense sources of radiation including:

• determining when the radiation sensitive sensor of an interceptor vehicle will be pointed toward an intense source of radiation during interception of an object;
• launching first and second identical interceptors along respective trajectories with an interval there between, wherein the trajectory of the first interceptor is selected such that the first interceptor will not intercept the object and such that a line of sight defined by the radiation sensitive sensor of the first interceptor will not intersect the intense source of radiation while the radiation sensitive sensor points at the object;
• tracking the object to be intercepted with the first interceptor;
• providing intercept information to the second interceptor from the first interceptor;
• and
• using the intercept information in the second interceptor to guide the second interceptor to intercept the object.