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Hellfire Laser Seeker Test System

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Description: PNNL was funded by the Weapons Assurance Division of the U.S. Naval Weapons Station, Seal Beach (NWS) to provide the capability to evaluate the impact of fleet service and aging on the reliability of the Laser Seeker Section (LSS) of the Hellfire Air-to-Ground missile AGM-114.

This capability was provided by designing a state-of-the-art automated test system to meet the immediate requirements of the NWS and also providing the versatility to expand the system to test other Hellfire missile components or laser seekers from other missiles. The system was primarily designed to perform the tests required in the Hellfire seeker specification MIS-30510N. However, the system design includes the versatility to allow the operators to modify the standard tests or to devise their own.

To meet the need for future expansion, additional capability was included in the system where it was cost effective to do so. For the most part, expansion has been addressed by configuring the system such that it does not preclude adding the capability to test any other section of the Hellfire missile or the LSS of the Maverick Air-to-Ground missile AGM-65E. As delivered, the Hellfire Seeker Test System has the following broad capabilities:

• Performs the operational tests described in the specification for the Hellfire LSS individually or in any combination.
• Provides the operator with a powerful diagnostic tool to test to the card level, and in some cases the component level.
• Performs the analysis of large data bases by using the control computer as a stand alone computer work station.
• Provides room for significant expansion to cover future test requirements.

The system was delivered to the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station,Yorktown, VA and is currently being used to evaluate seekers on missiles returned from operations in the Persian Gulf.

Point of Contact: Lowell A. Strope (509) 375-2801