Lockheed’s Multiple Kill Vehicle-L Missile Will Get All the MIRVs

Anti-missile systems have popped up often on Giz, but until now none of them have promised what Lockheed Martin’s excellently-named Multiple Kill Vehicle-L will do: tackle all the threats inside an ICBM. Each ICBM contains a bunch of Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles, some containing genuine warheads, some dummies to confuse defence systems.

The new MKV-L will be able to take out an ICBM and all of its MIRVs long before they could do any damage, and Lockheed just announced an important milestone in its development: they’ve calibrated the infrared pathfinder seekers. These are the clever gizmos at the heart of the MKV-L that’ll let it track those multiple targets. Next up: testing prototypes in the air and the lab, with an aim of in-operation date of 2017. [Cnet News]