Tactical ballistic missiles trajectory state and error covariance propagation

This paper addresses tracking tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs) from space and ships. Modeling errors in the tracking system produce an uncertainty covariance matrix. Determining the critical error sources and identifying the needed elements of the covariance matrix is one analysis objective. Given the shooter ship has received the TBM´s state via a cue link, then a trajectory propagation model is needed to predict impact parameters and uncertainty error ellipses. Determining trajectory fidelity and quantifying the resulting errors is the second object of this paper