The Thales STARStreak

Military commanders around the world are increasingly concerned about the serious threats being posed to their forces and civilians by low level combat aircraft, Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) and attack helicopters. Thales’ STARStreak High Velocity Missile (HVM) has been designed to defeat these threats quickly and effectively and provide a vital capability in force protection. STARStreak was designed to provide close air defence against conventional air threats such as fixed wing fighters and late unmasking helicopter targets. Since the system’s introduction, Thales has addressed the needs of military users around the world, introducing major improvements to provide increased range beyond 7 km, increased coverage and altitude and improved guidance precision against small targets.

The STARStreak configuration remains based on the proven STARStreak principles of utilising high velocity to defeat targets with short unmasking times. The three-dart payload maximises lethality and accurate line of sight laser beam riding guidance enables engagement of the smallest signature targets, which are extremely difficult to defeat and lock onto by traditional fire and forget missiles.

The STARStreak missile is capable of being launched from lightweight land, sea and air platforms, from either automatic fire control systems such as the RAPIDRanger or the STARStreak Lightweight Multiple Launcher (LML). STARStreak can therefore be deployed quickly into operations and is easy to integrate into a force structure, besides being a versatile missile that is most effective when dealing with targets with short exposure times. As soon as a target is detected the operator presses the trigger and launches the missile – there is no waiting for lock on. The rocket motor system accelerates the missile to greater than Mach 3 in a fraction of a second, andthe missile then releases the three laser-guided ‘hittiles’ towards the target. The laser guidance, which enables precision engagement of the smallest of targets, is immune to all known countermeasures, and the hittiles cannot be decoyed in flight.