International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The Range Commanders Council "Flight Termination Systems Commonality Standard," RCC 319-92, has been written with the noble goal of providing "common design, test, and documentation requirements for Flight Termination Systems (FTS)." As is often the case with standards of any kind, the devil is in the details! The Army TACMS (ATACMS) Block II Flight Termination/Telemetry System design has been significantly affected by the constraints imposed by RCC 319-92 as well as by Lockheed Martin Vought Systems customers' interpretations of those constraints and requirements. Important system elements are discussed along with some of the engineering decisions made to achieve compliance and the rationale behind those decisions. It is hoped that this monograph will acquaint potential users of RCC 319-92 with some of the issues involved in achieving compliance.

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Development is currently underway to produce a dual redundant Flight Termination System (FTS) capable Missile Telemetry Section. This FTS will mainly consist of a conformal wraparound antenna, two flight termination safe & arm (FTS&A) devices, two flight termination receivers (FTR), two explosive foil initiators (EFI) and destruct charge. This paper will discuss the current status of the development of these FTS components along with the process of obtaining the Flight Certification from Range and System Safety to fly this newly outfitted missile on a governmental test range.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper proposes a modification of the high alphabet method of data transmission over an RF carrier. The system maps eleven characters into three tones. The three tones are Frequency Modulated onto an RF carrier. The 165 unique characters can be utilized for data transmission. The advantages of this system are: 1. Longer duration data words which have narrow bandwidth yielding a high signal to noise ratio. 2. Digital Signal Processing can be utilized to reconstruct characters from the tri-tone encoding. 3. The system will be less susceptible to external interference than normal Frequency Shift Keying system. The majority of the three tone burst would have to masked in order to loose a data word.

ITC/USA 2011 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Seventh Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2011 / Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada / Weapons platform testing and monitoring have historically consisted of custom telemetry and flight safety system solutions tailored to the requirements (including Title 10 Mandates) and size constraints of individual platforms. The size of these individual components of these systems has necessitated that warhead replacement to facilitate insertion of these units to support test and evaluation activities. Currently there are no products available to meet these requirements in a miniaturized and modular package. L-3 Communications Telemetry East (L-3 TE) has developed an extensive background in providing solutions to gather vital missile and target information over the last several decades. Under the auspices of Eglin AFB, L-3 TE is leading a multi-disciplinary team to design and develop the Subminiature Flight Safety System (SFSS) to support existing and new weapons applications. SFSS is a universal, small, and low cost redundant flight termination system (FTS) that incorporates encoding, processing and TSPI capacities that provides critical health/safety/welfare monitoring and allows for highly efficient telemetering of all weapon application and FTS data. The SFSS is intended as a solution to allow weapon system developers, test agencies, and range safety officers the ability to track, monitor, and if necessary, terminate all types of weapon systems. It is designed to interface with newly developed weapon systems, while providing backward compatibility to meet existing requirements with minimal modifications to the weapon. The SFSS components are intended to significantly reduce the cost and improve the quality of test support by providing a highly integrated solution that minimizes physical intrusion into weapon systems, by eliminating the need for warhead removal. In addition, a common hardware platform will reduce overall system cost of acquisition and maintenance to the government, a key element in today's world of stressed budgets.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The primary objective of the NASA Space-Based Range Demonstration and Certification program was to develop and demonstrate space-based range capabilities. The Flight Demonstration 2 flights at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center were conducted to support Range Safety (commanding and position reporting) and high-rate (5 Mbps) Range User (video and data) requirements. Required ground support infrastructure included a flight termination system computer, the ground-data distribution network to send range safety commands and receive range safety and range user telemetry data and video, and the ground processing systems at the Dryden Mission Control Center to process range safety and range user telemetry data and video.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper discusses the methodology, requirements, tests, and implementation plan for the live demonstration of the Enhanced Flight Termination System (EFTS) using a missile program at two locations in Florida: Eglin Air Force Base (AFB) and Tyndall AFB. The demonstration included the integration of EFTS Flight Termination Receivers (FTRs) onto the missile and the integration of EFTS-program-developed transmitter assets with the mission control system at Eglin and Tyndall AFBs. The initial test stages included ground testing and captive-carry flights, followed by a launch in which EFTS was designated as the primary flight termination system for the launch.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The Range Commanders Council (RCC) Range Safety Group (RSG) is conducting a study into the next generation of ground-based flight termination technology, known as the Enhanced Flight Termination System (EFTS) study. The study was initiated by the RCC in April 2000 and scheduled to be complete in March 2002. The Government is performing the study with support from contractors and academia. In addition to the RSG, the Telemetry Group, Frequency Management Group, Telecommunications and Timing Group of the RCC support the study. Additionally, the National Security Agency is providing key support along with vendors who design, build, and test range safety systems. This paper will describe the background, goals, and current status of the study.

ITC/USA 2011 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Seventh Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2011 / Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada / As the size of missiles and UAVs shrink, so does the volume available for the Flight Termination System (FTS). Small, light weight FTS systems open up applications not possible with the larger and heavier conventional FTS systems. This paper presents a novel approach for the design, implementation and test of a subminiature Flight Terminate System Receiver for use in the Subminiature Flight Safety System (SFSS). This receiver implements the new digital-based Enhanced Flight Termination System (EFTS) protocol, while maintaining a volume of less than 1 cubic inch with power consumption of less than 2 watts. Combining all of the necessary functionality into a small package while meeting the rigorous requirements of the Range Commanders Council (RCC) specifications (EMI, vibration and shock) presented significant challenges. The Subminiature Enhanced Flight Termination Receiver used in the SFSS has been named the "SEFTR".

The Enhanced Flight Termination System uses weak CPM as its modulation scheme and a limiter-discriminator as its demodulation scheme. A PAM representation of weak CPM was developed which representation provided the necessary componenents to build a simplified PAM-based receiver that outperformed the EFTS limiter-discriminator, even in the presence of phase noise. The PAM representation also provided a new perspective into the negative characteristics of weak CPM.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / November 04-07, 1991 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Missile Flight Test Safety Managers (MFTSM) and other flight safety personnel at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) constantly monitor the realtime space position of missile and airborne target vehicles and the telemetered missile and target vehicle performance parameters during the test flight to determine if these are about to leave Range boundaries or if erratic vehicle performance might endanger Range personnel, Range support assets or the nearby civilian population. WSMR flight safety personnel rely on the vehicle telemetry system to observe the Flight Termination System (FTS) parameters. A realtime closed loop that involves the ground command-destruct transmitter, the vehicle command-destruct receiver (CDR), other FTS components, the missile S-band telemetry transmitter, and the ground telemetry acquisition/ demultiplex system is active when the vehicle is in flight. The FTS engineer relies upon telemetry to provide read-back status of the flight termination system aboard the vehicle. WSMR flight safety personnel use the telemetry system to assess realtime airborne vehicle systems performance and advise the MFTSM. The MFTSM uses this information, in conjunction with space position information provided by an Interactive Graphics Display System (IGDS), to make realtime destruct decisions about missiles and targets in flight. This paper will aid the missile or target developer in understanding the type of vehicle performance data and FTS parameters WSMR flight safety personnel are concerned with, in realtime missile test operations.