Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Intercepting a ballistic missile?

The least talked about facet of SDI is that it was mostly imaginary, yet was one of Reagans greatest triumphs.

Reagan managed to convince the Soviets we were developing the most outrageous technology, and the Soviets, tyring to counter, spent their nation into bankruptcy decades earlier than they might have. Thus ending the cold war.

IS, you are correct regarding the strategy being intended to disrupt an already failing soviet economy. However, the budgets and resulting high priority projects were very real and produced huge results.

A large percentage of space shuttle flights launched a new generation of sensor satellites. the Cruise missile program was hugely upgraded and deployed over multiple platforms ahead of schedule then deployed in Europe despite huge communist led protests.The MX system of launching ICBMs from mobile sites was prototyped and a full scale working model was built and tested at the NTS where it was seen by Soviet satellites creating great consternation in their govt.

The entire weapons development complex in the US was invigorated and, aided by new computer and material technologies, advanced our defense capabilities exponentially leading to the fall of communism.


mike r

I suspect a missile defense system is mostly placebo.

That has been looked at in detail, as part of a category called kinetic weapons. It would have to be space based as well so those small objects can travel at high speed for extended distances with very limited atmospheric friction.

When I was at the Naval Academy I was in the Physics degree program and our Department head was an old school German PHD we used to call "Herr Doktor" because he kind of reminded you of some genius German mad scientist LOL. He was actually working on the raw, theoretical math associated with some of this stuff. One day I looked at some of his notes but after about page 3 of 78 pages of hand written calculus and differential equations, I tapped out.

I won't get into specifics but I have a pretty high confidence level in the interceptor program now. Of course there were quite a few set backs in the original design (which is to be expected) but the program is a long ways from the original prototype.Just think about this for a minute, we track certain actions in certain parts of the world like a hawk 24/7, It's gonna take a large projectile to exit the atmosphere and re enter the atmosphere to target the US from the suspect nations that would do so.More than likely more than 1 kill vehicle (interceptor) is going to be launched to target said projectile. If you look at the accuracy of some of the smaller systems we use to protect bases around the world , the larger projectile should be pretty easy to kill. There's some pretty damn smart fellas designing this chit, I've had some first hand conversations with a few.

Some boys in Tennessee working on their own solution. They went home when the hot wings run out.

Mike, did you work on that project? I worked on Star wars and Brilliant pebbles , fielding our experiments at NTS from 1982 to 1993, and I continued to do work with some of the intercept projects after that. I have never heard of any ground based lasers deployed at NTS, but would be interested to read about it.

I did work with one of the many companies that developed airplane based laser intercept vehicles, and none were successful in their attempts to destroy a launch vehicle, to my knowledge. LLNL also had a tow behind laser system, but I do not know if it was fieldable or a concept when I saw it published. We did have a direct hit of an ICBM launched from Kodiak island, the kill vehicle was launched from Vandenberg, but it was test #12, and the only one that succeeded. We recorded an infrared imaging system that recorded the intercept, based in a chase plane.

I did get to see the B-1 bomber do a fly-over of NTS the day it was announced to the world, we were in Area 20 preparing for an experiment.

Allen

I was the Tactical Action Officer for one of the launches from our ship so I was coordinating the intercept from the combat center. Unfortunately I didn't get to see the physical launch on that one. The intercept took a LONG time just because of the sheer altitude the missile had to achieve. So on the 2nd launch, I talked the Captain into letting me watch from the weather deck and then run back down to combat to track the progress on the system. That missile was the fastest thing I've ever seen (or not seen LOL) in my life. Supposedly, it reached mach 2.5+ by the time the end of the missile left the rail. In other words, 0 to mach 2.5 in like 20 feet. I would estimate the visibility was around 3,000 feet and the missile was visible for less than a second. Just to get an idea of the incredible altitudes we're talking about, I watched the missile launch, walked back into the skin of the ship, went down 2 decks and walked down a passageway into combat, and the missile was only like 20% of the way there.

This is what we shot, for your reading pleasure. Basically, one of the following devices replaced the warhead on the end of a 2 stage missile launched from our ship:

The Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile (LEAP) is a miniaturized kinetic kill vehicle that, once delivered on a path towards the ballistic missile target, detects, acquires, and homes in on that target. LEAP destroys the target missile by force of impact. Efforts to pursue advanced, lightweight, low-cost components for space-based and ground-based ballistic missile defense interceptors have generated significant progress in the LEAP program in the early 1990s. The LEAP program succeeded in developing several miniature kill vehicles all weighing under 20 kilograms. These LEAP vehicles have undergone a series of hover tests to demonstrate their abilities to "fly" and, using optical seekers, acquire and track ballistic missile targets.

The Lightweight Exoatmospheric Projectile (LEAP) interceptor is a highly modular, lightweight, space tested kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) designed to defend against medium- and long-range ballistic missile attacks. Raytheon began development of the LEAP Kinetic Kill Vehicle (KKV) in 1985. The LEAP KKV had been validated in over a thousand simulation runs, over a hundred ground tests, several hover tests and several space flight tests.

The goal of the LEAP program, as originally conceived in 1985, was to develop and integrate the world's first advanced, miniature kinetic energy interceptors and associated technologies; and then to demonstrate their capabilities through extensive ground testing. The technologies were intended to enable development of ground-and space-based systems in support of the then-proposed Strategic Defense System architecture.

In 1985, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) began the LEAP program, pioneering the development of small, miniaturized kill vehicle technology. At that time, the program's focus was to drive down weight and size of a kill vehicle for application in electromagnetic gun and rocket interceptor weapons. A year earlier, the U.S. Army demonstrated a successful exoatmospheric kinetic energy kill vehicle in the Homing Overlay Experiment. The kill vehicle in that experiment weighed over 200 kilograms and was about the size of a refrigerator. The challenge the LEAP team accepted was to drive down that weight by more than an order of magnitude to roughly ten kilograms.

Although aggressive design objectives were established, the original design goals did not necessarily evolve from stringent system requirements. Instead, near-term vehicles were developed to demonstrate the validity of fully integrated miniature interceptors and to represent a step on the path towards an operational KKV system. Because of this flexible development approach, even though the missile defense architecture has changed in response to the changing global environment, the LEAP program has been able to maintain a robust, supporting technology focus.

The LEAP program had progressed from a series of highly successful hover tests at BMDO's National Hover Testing Facility at Edwards Air Force Base, California. In June 1991 the LEAP 2 Integrated Vehicle Strapdown and Free Flight Hover tests were successfully completed. These hover tests allowed the completely integrated LEAP vehicle to lift itself off of a test stand and hover autonomously in free flight using its divert and attitude control system propulsion systems. While in unencumbered free flight, the LEAP acquired and tracked a scaled infrared target and performed a series of maneuvers as dictated by the particular objectives of specific tests.

hemiallen, I was in CP-1 during the test as an advisor to the Test Director and DOE Manager, for emergency response. I toured the event site prior to, and following the test. I served in various capacities based at the NTS from 1978-1990. I spent lots of time in areas 19 and 20 during site prep and re entries.


mike r

hemiallen, did you stay in Mercury or area 12 housing? I imagine you have enjoyed some fine dining at The Steakhouse. I spent many nights in LLNL and LANL accomodations. I have seen more Mt. Lions in areas 19 and 20 then anywhere else in my life.

Those were some interesting times.


mike r

Spent more than a few nights at Area 10 but often flew in the middle of the night so we could go back "home" to China Lake to work data and didn't have to stay in that garden spot.

Pugs, area 10 has an interesting history, did you fly an F 89 perchance?


mike r

Are you guy talking about that place north of Vegas?




Dave

I'm getting old but not that old! No, FME in EA-6B Prowlers for that work.

Yes, a true garden spot where great things occurred on a regular basis. Ironically we are discussing this on Dec. 7. The japs used to have massive protest demonstrations at the Site.

REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR



MIKE R

Gotcha. I was there for a couple weeks for training in 2000 or so. It was fugking awesome. The last day some Major took it upon himself to give tours to anybody that was interested.

It was cool as schit. The amount of stuff that was abandoned out there was insane.




Dave

Pugs, not recalling FME designator would you clarify. I didn't think you were real old even if you did fly prowlers. Did you ever log the Paiute Mesa airstrip or were those missions not logged?

Fun days, bless Ronald Reagan


mike r

FME = Foreign Material Exploitation. Paiute Mesa was too short for us. If there were issues that needed an immediate landing it was Groom Lake or back to Tonapah Test. Standard flying for logging purposes. The real mission and the results were a different issue.

I did some other work out there in post-Navy career but that's different stuff.

I was lucky enough to be able to work w/ some of the Nuclear Weapons pioneers and heard some great stories. They had no idea of what the limits were and were frequently surprised. I once looked in to an old building in Area 25 and saw what appeared to be a Lunar Rover and immediately donned my tinfoil hat. I later learned that much of the testing and training for the moon missions was done at the NTS.

One day I was forward of Area 6 and saw an Ideco2500 drill rig[very large] floating across the dry lake bed. When I got closer I saw that the rig had been placed on tracks while erected and pushed/pulled by bulldozers to an new site.

working there was rarely boring.



mike r