Smallest Launch Vehicle: “Multipurpose Nanomissile System” 2010 US Army

more at

Public domain film from the US Army.

USASMDC/ARSTRAT will demonstrate a revolutionary low cost, low complexity multi-configuration missile for use in a variety of tactically relevant suborbital and orbital applications.

The Multipurpose NanoMissile System is low cost because it is very simple: it is an integrated tank/booster/engine design, it has a benign bi-propellant liquid engine, and it uses existing launch support and launch site hardware.

It can also accommodate existing Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) motors to augment performance as well as provide an important application for these surplus Army assets. The configurable boosters can be tailored to many specific missions: missile defense target vehicle, infrared and radar sensor exerciser, hypersonic test vehicle for aerospace components, pop-up reconnaissance system, highly responsive orbital launch vehicle for very small payloads (10 kg to low earth orbit) and even very long range strike with small conventional munitions.

• Multi-booster configurations can be tailored to many mission sets

• Can be augmented with U.S. Army surplus ATACMS and MLRS motors

• Low cost: $1M per flight

• Benign bi-propellants: ethane & nitrous oxide

• Operationally responsive: 24-hour requirement from storage call up to
launch ready

To achieve enhanced capabilities for the Warfighter from space, a necessary requirement is to have the ability to fly into and through space to include both sub-orbital and orbital missions. To test and exercise key space and missile
defense technologies, a dedicated missile is required to boost these technologies into their required trajectories or orbits. Currently the U.S. Army has no such capability despite being the largest user of missile defense and space
technologies. The Army also has the largest inventory of missiles and rockets, yet they have been designed primarily as weapons and not platforms to test missile defense and space technologies. The Multipurpose NanoMissile System will combine the Army’s great requirement for these technologies with an enormous surplus of ATACMS and MLRS engines to produce a low cost, simple missile
dedicated to bringing enhanced capabilities from space to the U.S. Army ground component Warfighter…

Status: Ongoing

Dynetics is working with COLSA Corporation and the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) to develop the propulsion system for a Multipurpose Nano Missile System (MNMS). Dynetics has completed the first round of testing of a 250 lbf Nitrous/Ethane rocket engine. The test data is being used to anchor the design of a 2500 lbf engine that will be fired in the near future. The goal of this activity is to develop long duration 250 lbf and 2500 lbf flight weight engines and corresponding propulsion systems.