Supporting the Mission: KBR and Missile Defense

This week, host John Arnold sits down with Chad Stevens from KBR’s Missile Defense and Aviation Systems group. Listen as they discuss missile defense, particularly the Patriot system, some of the work KBR does to support Patriot, as well as some of the related software solutions KBR has developed to keep missile defense systems at the forefront of innovation.

Bonus content: Chad Stevens and guest Greg Turner discuss opportunities for professional development, connection and networking created by the KBR Leadership Association.

Transcript

IN ORBIT: A KBR PODCAST

Season 2, Episode 10

Supporting the Mission: KBR and Missile Defense

INTRODUCTION

John Arnold:

Hello, I'm John.

Lubna Salim:

I'm Lubna, and this is In Orbit.

John Arnold:

Hello, and welcome to the podcast, In Orbiters and all earthlings. We're glad you're with us. Lubna, how are you?

Lubna Salim:

I'm very well. Thank you, John. What's up with you? What's happening in your part of the world?

John Arnold:

Well, it's another beautiful day here in Atlanta, Georgia. Had a nice, relaxing weekend. Can't ask for better. How about yourself?

Lubna Salim:

I've been doing fine too, although it's like a furnace situation in Delhi. But we had a couple of cool events happening in our Gurgaon office here. We had a “Pedal to Work” challenge on Friday, and then we had a garbage collection drive. So I think the zeal and the spirit of people hasn't been crushed by the heat, which is a good thing.

John Arnold:

Sounds like the Zero Harm sustainability culture is alive and well in Gurgaon.

Lubna Salim:

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You did yet another super cool interview.

John Arnold:

Yeah. In continuing what we had been doing, we put it on pause for a minute, but we've come back to explore some of the capabilities that KBRs Government Solutions business offers. The one that we talk about in this interview listeners are going to hear today is super important because it's so upfront in the news lately, especially with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and that's missile defense.

Without getting too in the weeds because we want the interview to speak for itself, had the opportunity to speak with Chad Stevens, who's a project manager for the Missile Defense and Aviation Systems group at KBR. He supported numerous missile defense systems in his career, including the Patriot system, so super interesting to talk to him. We're hearing about NATO strategically positioning missile defense systems in Slovakia and Poland, so it's just a very weird time. To know that these people are not involved in the military use, but in the development of the capability is really cool.

Lubna Salim:

So, without further ado, let's let our listeners right into the interview and let them have a listen.

TRANSITION

John Arnold:

We have the privilege of speaking with experts from across KBR on lots of different and fascinating topics, and today is no exception. But not only is this episode's topic interesting, it's also extremely important in terms of current events. I'm referring to missile defense which has, of course, been much in the news recently due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Today, we're going to talk about what missile defense is, why it's important, and how KBR's helping the United States shore up critical components of its air and missile defense.

John Arnold:

With me today to talk about all that, and more, is Chad Stevens. Chad is a software engineering technical advisor and is project manager of a world-class software team in the Missile Defense and Aviation Systems group, which is part of the Defense and Intel unit of KBR's Government Solutions United States business. He began his career at KBR as an intern, and just celebrated 20 years with the company. For the past 10 of those 20 years, he supported the Patriot missile defense system.

Before that, he performed test and evaluation for THAAD missile defense systems — that's terminal high-altitude area defense, and the Ballistic Missile Defense System. Chad was born and raised in Alabama. He earned bachelors and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Go Chargers! He joins us today from Huntsville. Welcome to the podcast, Chad.

Chad Stevens:

Thanks for having me, John.

John Arnold:

All right. When I say missile defense, I'm primarily talking about U.S. missile defense, which includes the Patriot system. Can you walk us through what missile defense is, and also give us some background on the Patriot system?

Chad Stevens:

Okay, absolutely. The Patriot weapon system, we consider that the foundation of integrated air and missile defense for the United States, as well as 16 of our allied nations. Let me break that down a little bit. What do I mean when I say air and missile defense? We'll start talking about air defense. Air defense includes engagements against manned and unmanned aircraft, and as well as cruise missiles.

John Arnold:

Gotcha.

Chad Stevens:

For missile defense, I can talk about Patriot's involvement in support of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). At the Missile Defense Agency, missile defense technology being developed, tested, and deployed by the United States is designed to counter the ballistic missiles of all ranges — short, medium, intermediate and long range. Since ballistic missiles have different ranges, speeds, sizes, and performance characteristics, the Missile Defense System is an integrated, layered architecture.

What that means is, it provides multiple opportunities to destroy missiles and their warheads before they can reach their target. The system's architecture will include three main components network sensors — these could be space-based sensors that could be ground- based or sea-based. Radar systems for detection and tracking incoming missile threats. Also consists of ground- and sea-based interceptor missiles for destroying the missile using either the force of a direct collision — so a kinetic energy hit to kill — or an explosive blast fragmentation warhead.

John Arnold:

Understood. Okay.

Chad Stevens:

Then the final component would be a command and control, a command control battle management communication system, referred to in missile defense as the C2BMC. That provides the operational commanders with the needed links that connect between the sensors and the interceptor missiles. The missile defense elements for MDA are operated by United States military personnel. These are including U.S. Strategic Command — STRATCOM — NORTHCOM, PACOM, U.S. Forces Japan, EUCOM, and others. The U.S.'s Missile Defense cooperative programs with a number of allies, and actively participates in the NATO activities to maximize opportunities developed and integrated in NATO Ballistic Missile Defense System.

Back to Patriot, since it was first fielded, Patriot's been used by five nations in more than 250 combat engagements against manned and unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missile threats. Since January of 2015, Patriots intercepted more than 150 ballistic missiles in combat operations around the world. More than 90 of those intercepts involved the Guidance Enhanced Missile family, surface-to-air missiles, or GEM variant of the Patriot Missile.

John Arnold:

Wow.

Chad Stevens:

As the most mature hit-to-kill weapon system of the Missile Defense System, it provides simultaneous air and missile defense capabilities as the lower-tier element in the defense of the U.S. deployed forces and their allies. It also works with THAAD — we talked about THAAD earlier — to provide an integrated overlapping defense against missile threats in the terminal phase of flight.

John Arnold:

Right.

What do I mean when I say “terminal?” Ballistic missile trajectories are commonly divided into three phases of flight. You have boost, midcourse and terminal. Each element plays a role in the system to defend against hostile missiles in any phase of flight. The terminal phase is very short, and it begins once the missile starts to reenter the atmosphere.

John Arnold:

Gotcha.

Chad Stevens:

It's the last opportunity to make an intercept before the warhead's going to reach a target. Intercepting warhead during this phase is complex, and is the least desirable of phases because there's a small margin for error.

John Arnold:

Right. Right.

Chad Stevens:

The intercept will have to occur close to the intended target. The terminal phase elements include the THAAD weapon system — now being delivered to the U.S. Army. The Aegis-based terminal defense capabilities and the SM2 missile. And then of course the PAC-3 — the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 — which is now deployed worldwide. So these mobile systems defend against the short to medium-range variant missiles.

John Arnold:

Okay.

Chad Stevens:

Jointly, these systems engage a threat by performing a multitheater defense against adversary missile threats using peer-to-peer engagement coordination, early warning track data, and battle management situational awareness. They contribute to the entire system's situational awareness by transmitting precision queuing data between the different elements, and also simultaneously protect system assets against the short-range missile, large-caliber rockets, and [inaudible] threats. Now for Homeland Defense, Patriot provides detection, track and engagement of short range-ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

John Arnold:

Okay.

Chad Stevens:

These engagements are further enhanced by network remote sensors that supply early warning data to increase its probability of success. Patriot has added upper-tier debris mitigation capability to mitigate the excessive radar load and potential missile wastage caused by debris from upper-tierintercept. Basically, what that means is, you have a THAAD engagement, and THAAD intercepts a target. Patriot is tracking it as well. What happens there is, we want to make sure the Patriot's not going to start tracking all the debris.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

So it’s basically debris limiting.

John Arnold:

That's fascinating.

Chad Stevens:

In a nutshell, that is the Patriot weapon system, and Patriot's contribution to overall missile defense capability.

John Arnold:

To call it sophisticated would be a gross understatement. Obviously, the Patriot's been around for decades. The system, it's come a long way, it's being integrated with other systems. There’re so many moving parts that, of course, it has to be undergoing enhancement and improvement. Earlier this year, it was announced that KBR had been awarded a $207 million contract to enhance Patriot system. Why is that a big deal?

Chad Stevens:

For over 40 years now, KBR has provided continuous support of this weapon system, both during peace and wartime missions. During this time, Patriot's been used by five nations in more than 250 combat engagements against manned and unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. KBR has been the team behind the mission for more than 3,000 of these ground tests and over 1,600 missile test events.

John Arnold:

Wow.

Chad Stevens:

We have supported all of these from the beginning. As part of these tests and live fires, KBR engineers and analysts use these opportunities to uncover new ways to further improve or enhance the weapon system. The improvements are necessary because the threat's always evolving. The goal is to always be on top of that and to be ahead of the threat.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

The threat is constantly changing, and it's increasingly becoming more and more sophisticated.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

In order for us to defeat the threat, we need to make sure that we provide operationally realistic tests against the weapon system to ensure that we have a capability against these emerging threats. The result of these improvements and enhancements is that today's Patriot is advanced, modern and capable of defeating the full spectrum of threats that we have. In summary, for this, we currently provide support to more than 240 Patriot fire units deployed to the U.S. and its allies across 17 nations. It's a big task.

John Arnold:

Critically important. Chad, I want our listeners to learn a little more about you and your role at KBR. And without getting into anything that may be sensitive, what are you and your teams working on, and how does that work figure into those broader Patriot system enhancements we were just talking about?

Chad Stevens:

Because we support the full life cycle of the Patriot system, KBR has developed a wide variety of software tools to help us be more efficient, and to more effectively support our customers.

John Arnold:

Okay.

Chad Stevens:

Our core competencies are in the areas of system engineering, logistics, and acquisition and program management. To give you a few examples, in the area of foreign military sales, given that we talked about Patriot being fielded in the 16 allied nations, an important part of this FMS process is our technology protection.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

We developed a semi-automated technology protection process. What we wanted to do with that is mitigate any risk of unintentional export of system-critical technologies. In doing so, our system manages over 300,000 system documents. These documents include technical specifications, drawings, engineering change proposals, technical manuals, those kinds of things.

We have automated tools that we've built to help us determine information that can be released to the FMS customers. So we can much more rapidly make those determinations and get the correct information fielded to these customers.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

Another area that we're providing more detailed support would be in the modeling and simulation arena. A lot of the requirements that are levied against the system are such that they lend themselves really well to modeling simulation …

John Arnold:

Okay.

Chad Stevens:

… either because it's going to be too complex, or too expensive to try to test that in real world conditions.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

A lot of what we do is modeling and simulation. We have Patriot real-world testing and flight test analysis, and we take all that data and we use that in doing our verification and validation steps against all the models and simulations that we have in our portfolio.

For instance, we have a fully digital, battalion-level simulation, that simulates, with high fidelity, the radar systems, all the missiles, all the command and control nodes. And it's a real-time simulation as well. We can take the real-world test events, we can feed that information — the results of those tests into these models — and we can run Monte Carlo simulations against those events and then go through a comparison process. Now, the comparison process, in the past, has been very labor intensive.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

But we've effectively automated the entire process. We can take raw data from the weapon system. We can also take the raw data from the simulations, once they're initialized, and we can execute the sims and also pull all the raw data, run all the comparisons, do all the performance analysis, and generate the summary reports. Obviously, human-in-the-loop has to be part of that, to go through the results and make sure that the results are coming out okay. That's some of the things that we've done to help automate and improve our modeling simulation capabilities.

That also, I guess, is a good segue into some of the other things that we do like configuration management and data collection, reduction and analysis. As part of some of those types of activities that we've put together, we've also developed a fully automated life cycle, data management process. The system is entirely automated and has managed hundreds of terabytes of data over the past five years, so far, without any data loss to date. We're pretty proud of that system as well.

John Arnold:

That's a huge accomplishment.

Chad Stevens:

Talking about the overall capabilities that we have and managing the life cycle of these weapon systems. Some other areas that I can touch on but are probably too lengthy for discussion today — the information technology arena, the cyber security life cycle logistics, operational evaluation and operational testing, prototyping, systems integration, training and exercise support. Those are all other areas that our folks in Huntsville here are contributing.

John Arnold:

Again, it's mind-blowing to think about all of the different facets of missile defense, and to hear you describe it — thank goodness we have trained experts on top of things. I was wondering if you could tell us about some of the software. In our previous discussion discussions, you mentioned a couple of examples of the software that your team are working with, or on. I think you mentioned Athena, and iTEAMS.

Chad Stevens:

Yes sir. We currently have two major products that we develop and support. One's called Athena. It's a desktop product that we've developed. Another, it's a web-based system called iTEAMS. I'll just talk about Athena a little bit. Athena was originally developed to handle large flight tests and modeling simulation data, as we talked about previously. About a decade and a half ago, we started developing this tool and it was to support THAAD continuous evaluations. THAAD was undergoing continuous testing, and we wanted to build up tools to help us in that testing process.

At the time, there were not a lot of commercial products out there that could really handle the types of data and the quantities we were dealing with. So we started building up our own sets of tools. And that eventually became the Athena product. At this point, what we have is something that is a collection of tools that will all work together. And they all work together to provide what we consider to be large-scale data management/data analysis visualization. We also have a lot of automation capability within this system, as well as lots of interactivity with working with datasets. Visualization tools could be like 2D mapping interfaces, as well as 3D. We have a 3D globe environment where we can plot a full six-degree-of-freedom-type missile trajectories.

John Arnold:

Wow.

Chad Stevens:

You can look at bodies in space moving. We can do geospatial querying. We can combine various sets of polygons and things like that for if we're looking like defended areas and defended assets, trying to make sure we're optimizing those types of things. We've built lots of different tools to help us rapidly determine those types of things.

Part of that, what we've built is a framework. And that framework houses a lots of different tools. I think right now we have about 30 different user interfaces, and those user interfaces provide a variety of different capabilities.

The backbone of all of this is we use the structure query language, SQL. We use C# language. We also use Python. Those are the three main languages that we use in building this whole interface. But what it does is allows analysts the power to go through and really dig deep and dig down into all the datasets and do it rather quickly, whether they're doing ad hoc-type: "Hey, I got some data in. What do I do with this?" Take a look at it through the system.” All the way through: “I'm going to fully automate some entire process.” It gives us a whole lot of flexibility.

A little more about it. Data can be quickly and autonomously ingested and combined with other data sources. It's extremely versatile. It's scalable across any number of servers and clients. So it is a server-client type interface.

John Arnold:

Gotcha. Okay.

Chad Stevens:

With Athena's built-in office tools, we can dynamically create and interact with documents. We can interact with spreadsheets. We can custom build our own drawings and use those drawings as programming interfaces. So you can dynamically draw and program things.

We have end-user customizable dashboards. It both allows you to build dashboards and host those dashboards. We can put them on the desktop. We can put them on the web. It makes it really easy to drill down, look at high-level information across lots and lots of datasets, or drill down into something very specific and do it really quickly.

With that said, we think overall Athena provides a lot of increased productivity for all of our engineers and analysts.

John Arnold:

Right, sounds like it.

Chad Stevens:

It lets us focus on evaluating our results and lets us take action on whatever data we have in front of us. In summary, I think that provides a good rapid response from our raw data to a decision. That's Athena in a nutshell. That's what we've built over the past 15 or so years there.

John Arnold:

That's amazing.

Chad Stevens:

Then I guess switching over to the tool called iTeams. iTeams is a web-based product. And so it's more of a project management tool. It allows KBR project managers, as well as government customers and let's say subcontractors, teammates, the ability to go in and view contract data, project financials. Again, using interactive dashboards, folks can come in, log into the system, and see their current financial status, see how their burn rates are on different projects, those kind of things.

It also has a contract deliverable management interface. So you have a contract with CDRLs (contract data requirement lists). You got to write these reports. Engineers, analysts, folks can load their reports in. It's got a full workflow interface to help them manage all that. It also brings in the government customer because the customers can also log into the system as well. It's a good interface to bring everyone together.

The iTeams portal, it increases coordination and communication. It facilitates timely deliverable information and availability data and contract deliverables. iTeams has a total of 12 modules, and the portal is tailorable to requirements, supports collaboration, coordination, communication between our project and program managers, as well as other support staff, customers, teammates, anywhere, anytime on any device.

John Arnold:

That's amazing. It has to be organized. With the amount of data that's bouncing around and the communication that's needed, and the millions of dollars that are going into these projects, that managing them efficiently, which is something KBR does better than anyone, is so, so important. That's super impressive. Sorry. I just wanted to interject and say that.

Chad Stevens:

I think an important piece there is that we want to be transparent with our customers. We want to make sure that the customer is in lockstep with us and that at any given time, the customer can log in and see where we are. This gives them the opportunity to do that. They don't have to ping a PM and ask them, "Hey, can you give me a status of something," that they could just log in and look at it themselves.

John Arnold:

Right. Of course, the goal of the podcast is to spotlight the amazing things that our people do at KBR. I think that you've outdone yourself in explaining some of the stuff that we do in missile defense. We do this to get people more interested in learning more about KBR. But we also want to shine a light on some of the great opportunities that KBR makes available to employees. I know a major area of focus is professional development. Chad, in our communications back and forth, you mentioned the KBR Leadership Association chapter there in Huntsville as being one of those great development opportunities.

To talk about this, we're going to do something a little different. Chad's going to introduce another special guest that we have with us today, Greg Turner. Chad, I'll let you introduce Greg and then pass the mic off to him.

Chad Stevens:

Okay, great. We have a local chapter called KBR Leadership Association. It's a part of the National Management Association. It's a nonprofit organization, about 7,000 or so members.

John Arnold:

Wow.

Chad Stevens:

We are a local chapter, chapter number 495, of that. It has a board of directors. I'm the elected president of our local chapter here. Mr. Greg Turner here, he's our vice president and has been doing just some fantastic work with the KLA group here in Huntsville. I'd like to introduce Greg Turner and let him speak just a few minutes about the KLA organization.

Greg Turner:

All right. Thank you, Chad. Yeah, the KBR Leadership Association provides an affordable, efficient and effective means for KBR employees to continuously improve their leadership skills, to give back to other KBR employees, and to provide community service on behalf of KBR. We think it's important at KBR — people like Chad, they work very hard all day long, and at times they just need to take a break from the hard work they're doing and focus on themselves and improving their own skills. The KBR Leadership Association gives them the opportunity to do that.

As he already mentioned, there's two local chapters within the National Management Association, KBR of Huntsville and then KBR of Houston. They're two distinct leadership associations, but they're in two different locations run by different members of KBR employees.

As far as how's it's impacted me; I've been with KBR for four years now, since 2019. I've been a member of KLA since then. For me, the big ROI is having the opportunity to meet, work with, and learn from other KBR employees who I don't normally get to work with on a day-to-day basis. These are people that I normally don't get to work with, like Chad, for example. We get to meet with these people. We get to learn from these people. It includes the executive management team here in Huntsville as well. They participate in the activities that we do. But also, it gives us a chance to work with other companies, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who also have leadership associations.

I guess to wrap things up, KLA members have always been there for me professionally and personally. I could call Chad anytime night or day, and I know he would help me out. That's the same way a lot of the other members in the association is. It's allowed me to see and move into other positions at KBR that I didn't know existed. Again, when you network with a lot of different people in a lot of different areas within KBR, you learn a lot from them.

John Arnold:

Yeah, absolutely.

Greg Turner:

That's the biggest ROI on it for me.

John Arnold:

Well, let me ask you while I've got you on the horn, Greg, just specifically — and you can think about this for a second. But in addition to how it's impacted you, and obviously I think the networking and knowledge sharing thing that you were just talking about is such a big part of the KBR Leadership Association. Can you share with us about how maybe it's helped you in the important work that you do with the Patriot Ground Support Equipment group?

Greg Turner:

Oh, it's amazing. The people at KBR are just totally amazing. So one of the things I do here at KBR is I'm a scheduler for Patriot ground support equipment. And so I've only been doing this for three years. So I'm still learning a lot about the Patriot system. But one of the things that I do is I reach out to new employees who come into KBR, and KBR just brings in some amazing people. And so these are some people that know more about the Patriot than I'll ever know. So it's just a great opportunity to network and learn from those people and so oftentimes, it's just great to have those internal contacts.

John Arnold:

I love that. That's wonderful. Well, thanks so much for coming on and telling us about that. We'll hand the microphone back over to Chad for a moment just so we can get any final thoughts.

Greg Turner:

All right. Thank you, John.

John Arnold:

Thank you.

Chad Stevens:

Hey John.

John Arnold:

Why that is wonderful to me is that KBR is built on a foundation of that team of teams mentality, and it really sounds like the KBR Leadership Association chapters help facilitate that and promote that. I want to ask you the same question that I asked Greg, and you can think about this for a second as well. How has the Leadership Association impacted you and then how has it helped you in the work that you do on missile defense, do you think?

Chad Stevens:

Well, I think it's helped me develop friendships. I think, like Greg said, there's so many people working within KBR at this facility, and so a lot of the folks you may not know otherwise.

John Arnold:

Right.

Chad Stevens:

And so I think getting to know some of these people, KBR employees that are coming in and joining the organization, it gives us the opportunity to meet them, talk to them, and spend some time with them. We have socials and we have all these different events that people can come to, charitable events. So we've been doing various charitable work and we're expanding that. So we're hoping that those will provide us some more opportunities to work together in different environments than we'd see in a normal workday situation here at KBR.

John Arnold:

That's wonderful. It really is the team-of-teams mentality in action. Well, before I let you guys go, do you have any parting thoughts?

Chad Stevens:

Only thing I would add is I think folks come here and work for KBR because we feel like it's rewarding work, supporting the warfighter mission. But we stay because we like the people.

John Arnold:

That's amazing. Well, speaking personally, I appreciate what you guys do, appreciate what you and all the teams there do, and appreciate your time. And thanks for being on the podcast.

Chad Stevens:

Thank you very much for having me.

TRANSITION

Lubna Salim:

So, wow, John. That was quite an interesting interview and amazing to have another guest on the show. There was Greg Turner. That was a surprise.

John Arnold:

Right? A first for the podcast. We have some last-minute bonus content for our listeners this week. Greg Turner, we were very glad to have him stop by and tell us about the KBR Leadership Association and the benefits, both personal and professional, that it creates for employees. And it sounds like that organization means a lot and really helps them in the execution of their duties on some really, really important tasks.

Lubna Salim:

Yes. And I love the way how every department, every team, is connected and that's what you brought out through your interview and that's, I think, something that's keeping all of us literally in each other's orbit.

John Arnold:

Definitely.

Lubna Salim:

What a fabulous interview. And for more, we have two webinars coming up next week from the [Sustainable] Technology Solutions business unit. So whoever would be interested in knowing about our nitric acid revamp or inorganics capabilities, you can just go onto the website, register for the webinar and get to know more.

John Arnold:

Right. And for more information on the capabilities across the business, including government solutions and the work that we're doing in missile defense and other areas, please check out kbr.com. If you have any information for us, or would like to hear about a specific topic, let us hear about it. You can email us at inorbit@kbr.com. We once again also want to thank our wonderful producer, Emma, for making all these episodes happen. We couldn't do it without her.

Lubna Salim:

Yes.

John Arnold:

And that's it for me, Lubna. Do you have anything else?

Lubna Salim:

No, John. I'm very excited about this episode and we would love to hear feedback from our listeners, so they are free to also …

John Arnold:

Absolutely.

Lubna Salim:

... drop in emails and tell us what an amazing or not so amazing job we are doing.

John Arnold:

No, we only want to hear the good stuff!

Lubna Salim:

Yeah. So with this thought, we will sign off for the day and I'm really looking forward to seeing you for the next podcast, John.

John Arnold:

Yes, indeed. Hope you have a great day and thanks to all our listeners.

Lubna Salim:

Bye.