New telemetry systems strengthen Royal Australian Air Force’s long-range advanced weapons testing

Engineering lead Svetlichney and the team are committed to supporting the Woomera Test Range by expanding the capabilities already delivered by Raytheon Australia, helping provide sovereign capabilities for the ADF. 

Covering 122,000 sq. kilometres, the Woomera Test Range is the largest land-based test range in the Western world. Svetlichny and the Woomera Test Range team are enhancing its capabilities to support missions such as long-range advanced missile trials, space launch and re-entry activities, and improved test range safety management. 

In that endeavour, the team successfully designed and developed two new systems to support the Royal Australian Air Force – a Telemetry and Flight Termination System Pod, or TMFTSPOD, and Terminal Area Telemetry system, or TATM.

These capabilities are being delivered alongside the Long-Range Deployable Telemetry Monitoring and Flight Termination Systems, or LRD, which support the future testing of advanced weapons systems in Australia. The system provides telemetry and command termination capabilities to existing technology at significantly increased ranges.

The TATM, developed to meet RAAF Air Warfare Centre requirements for a remote deployable telemetry station, will be located near a target area, expanding the test envelope for Raytheon Australia telemetry systems that have already been delivered.

The TMFTSPOD is attached to one of the Joint Adversarial Training and Testing, or JATTS, planes and be used for ground-based system testing and for training Australian Defence operators for telemetered missions.

“Telemetry is an evolving capability, and this project has been no exception – it’s exciting to now see the elements in action,” Svetlichny said.

“The addition of the LRD capability to our existing portfolio of advanced testing and training environments further strengthens our support of Australia’s Defence mission."

He noted that enabling long-range flight trials in test environments for the Royal Australian Air Force is a key priority outlined in the National Defence Strategy. Delivering these systems demonstrates the team’s ability to provide state-of-the-art solutions for training, testing, tactics development and certification activities for the Australian Defence Force.

“The project is poised for growth and we’re eager about where this capability will lead.” - Grace Kungel, Raytheon Australia Project Manager

The Factory Acceptance and Systems Acceptance Testing were both achieved on schedule at sites across Australia.

Testing activities were key milestones for both projects, providing great insight into the system capabilities and an opportunity to see how they will be used in the field.

“The TATM testing proved that the system could receive, process, encrypt, and transport Telemetry data – essentially, it can track a missile. The POD testing demonstrated that the system can transmit telemetry data and receive flight termination tones, mimicking a real missile,” Svetlichny said.

“While nerves were high, the engineering and design behind our capability ensured the complex range integration and testing were successfully delivered over two weeks, alongside Australian Defence personnel. The outcome of this testing was not only a demonstration of technical achievement, but a proud milestone in delivering an advanced capability.”

Raytheon Australia Project Manager Grace Kungel reaffirmed the importance of highlighting the successes achieved across her teams and projects. 

“With support from our subcontractor, the POD completed its flight certification programme with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, or CASA, allowing us to deliver the system on schedule so our customer and their operators can begin using it and prepare for additional tests soon,” Kungel said.

“The project is poised for growth and we’re eager about where this capability will lead.”

Telemetry specialist Ben Hennessy is part of the team responsible for configuring and maintaining the telemetry systems during field flight trials.

“The LRD system is the largest military, deployable telemetry capability in Australia, and is one of the largest telemetry capabilities for continuous coverage, overland, in the world,” Hennessy said. 

“We’re working closely with the customer in the field and thank all teams for their hard work and commitment towards delivering sovereign capabilities to support long-range advanced missile trials.”