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148-663: Nike-X was an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system designed in the 1960s by the United States Army to protect major cities in the United States from attacks by the Soviet Union 's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet during the Cold War . The X in the name referred to its experimental basis and was supposed to be replaced by a more appropriate name when the system was put into production. This never came to pass; in 1967

296-669: A Taepodong-1 missile over northern Japan, the Japanese have been jointly developing a new surface-to-air interceptor known as the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) with the US. Tests have been successful, and there are 11 locations that are planned for the PAC-3 to be installed. The approximate locations are near major air bases, like Kadena Air Base , and ammunition storage centers of the Japanese military. The exact location are not known to

444-408: A ballistic flight trajectory . The term "anti-ballistic missile" is a generic term for a system designed to intercept and destroy any type of ballistic threat; however, it is commonly used for systems specifically designed to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). There are a limited number of systems worldwide that can intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles : During 1993,

592-445: A counterforce strike could destroy a single US missile. If both forces had similar numbers of missiles, such an attack would leave both forces with few remaining missiles to launch a counterstrike. Adding Zeus would reduce the number of losses on the US side, helping ensure a counterstrike force would survive. The same would be true if the US built more ICBMs instead. The Air Force was far more interested in building its own missiles than

740-467: A land-based anti-ballistic missile test on 11 January 2010. The test was exoatmospheric and done in midcourse phase and with a kinetic kill vehicle . China is the second country after US that demonstrated intercepting ballistic missile with a kinetic kill vehicle, the interceptor missile was a SC-19 . The sources suggest the system is not operationally deployed as of 2010. On 27 January 2013, China did another anti ballistic missile test. According to

888-486: A supersonic jet's flyby (directly underneath the meteor's path) and as a detonation wave , with the circular shock wave centred at the meteor explosion, causing multiple instances of broken glass in the city of Chelyabinsk and neighbouring areas (pictured). In the examples below, the shock wave is controlled, produced by (ex. airfoil) or in the interior of a technological device, like a turbine . The wave disk engine (also named "Radial Internal Combustion Wave Rotor")

1036-511: A MAR and its associated underground Defense Center Data Processing System (DCDPS). Because the Sprint was designed to operate at short range, a single base could not provide protection to a typical US city, given urban sprawl . This required the Sprint launchers to be distributed around the defended area. Because a Sprint launched from a remote base might not be visible to the MAR during the initial stages of

1184-480: A SAC command and control center or an airfield on the outskirts of a city. The second study, HSD-II, considered the protection of isolated bases like missile fields. Most follow-up work focused on the HSD-II concept. HSD-II proposed building small Sprint bases close to Minuteman fields. Incoming warheads would be tracked until the last possible moment, decluttering them completely and generating highly accurate tracks. Since

1332-624: A Spitfire happened upon a V-2 rising through the trees, and fired on it with no effect. This led to allied efforts to capture launching sites in Belgium and the Netherlands. A wartime study by Bell Labs into the task of shooting down ballistic missiles in flight concluded it was not possible. In order to intercept a missile, one needs to be able to steer the attack onto the missile before it hits. A V-2's speed would require guns of effectively instantaneous reaction time, or some sort of weapon with ranges on

1480-573: A Zeus base by firing only four warheads at it. These did not even have to land close in order to destroy the base; an explosion within several miles would destroy its radars, which were very difficult to harden . If the Soviets did have hundreds of missiles, they could easily afford to use some to attack the Zeus sites. Additionally, technical problems arose that appeared to make the Zeus almost trivially easy to defeat. One problem, discovered in tests during 1958 ,

1628-515: A complex test designed to validate how the system can detect, identify, track and then discriminate real from decoy targets delivered into space by an improved Silver Sparrow target missile. According to officials, the milestone test paves the way toward low-rate initial production of the Arrow 3. David's Sling (Hebrew: קלע דוד), also sometimes called Magic Wand (Hebrew: שרביט קסמים), is an Israel Defense Forces military system being jointly developed by

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1776-413: A discontinuity where entropy increases abruptly as the shock passes. Since no fluid flow is discontinuous, a control volume is established around the shock wave, with the control surfaces that bound this volume parallel to the shock wave (with one surface on the pre-shock side of the fluid medium and one on the post-shock side). The two surfaces are separated by a very small depth such that the shock itself

1924-562: A few more times, including in November 2015. The HQ-29, a counterpart to the MIM-104F PAC-3 , was first tested in 2011. Surface-to-air missiles that supposedly have some terminal ABM capability (as opposed to midcourse capability): The technology and experience from the successful anti-satellite test using a ground-launched interceptor during January 2007 was immediately applied to current ABM efforts and development. China carried out

2072-410: A flow field, which are still attached to the body, the shock wave which is deviating at some arbitrary angle from the flow direction is termed oblique shock. These shocks require a component vector analysis of the flow; doing so allows for the treatment of the flow in an orthogonal direction to the oblique shock as a normal shock. When an oblique shock is likely to form at an angle which cannot remain on

2220-413: A high-pressure shock wave rapidly forms. Shock waves are not conventional sound waves; a shock wave takes the form of a very sharp change in the gas properties. Shock waves in air are heard as a loud "crack" or "snap" noise. Over longer distances, a shock wave can change from a nonlinear wave into a linear wave, degenerating into a conventional sound wave as it heats the air and loses energy. The sound wave

2368-795: A latest generation ABM system with a radar site in the Czech Republic and the launch site in Poland . The system was announced to be aimed against ICBMs from Iran and North Korea. This caused harsh comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) security conference during spring 2007 in Munich. Other European ministers commented that any change of strategic weapons should be negotiated on NATO level and not 'unilaterally' [sic, actually bilaterally] between

2516-412: A less sophisticated radar could be used, one with accuracy on the order of a mile rather than feet, which could be built much less expensively using VHF parts. This Extended Range Nike Zeus, or Zeus EX for short, would be able to provide protection over a wider area, reducing the number of bases needed to provide full-country defense. Work on this concept continued throughout the 1960s, eventually becoming

2664-662: A letter of intent and agreeing to initial joint requirements. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop a countermeasure that could be integrated into the French-led EU TWISTER (Timely Warning and Interception with Space-based TheatER surveillance) capability program. TWISTER, launched in 2019 with MBDA France acting as lead contractor as well, is intended to be an air defense system capable of early warning, tracking and intercepting high-performance air threats, including defense against ballistic missiles (BMD) and hypersonic vehicles. The program involves France, Italy, Spain ,

2812-415: A much lighter system that would use only 1200 missiles. Technological improvements in warheads and missiles in the late 1950s greatly reduced the cost of ICBMs. After the launch of Sputnik, Pravda quoted Nikita Khrushchev claiming they were building them "like sausages". This led to a series of intelligence estimates that predicted the Soviets would have hundreds of missiles by the early 1960s, creating

2960-685: A new missile defence system in Central Europe. According to a July 2007 survey, a majority of Poles were opposed to hosting a component of the system in Poland. By 28 July 2016 Missile Defense Agency planning and agreements had clarified enough to give more details about the Aegis Ashore sites in Romania (2014) and Poland (2018). Project 640 had been the PRC's indigenous effort to develop ABM capability. The Academy of Anti-Ballistic Missile & Anti-Satellite

3108-411: A non-reacting gas. A shock wave compression results in a loss of total pressure, meaning that it is a less efficient method of compressing gases for some purposes, for instance in the intake of a scramjet . The appearance of pressure-drag on supersonic aircraft is mostly due to the effect of shock compression on the flow. In elementary fluid mechanics utilizing ideal gases , a shock wave is treated as

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3256-443: A number of examples of shock waves, broadly grouped with similar shock phenomena: Shock waves can also occur in rapid flows of dense granular materials down inclined channels or slopes. Strong shocks in rapid dense granular flows can be studied theoretically and analyzed to compare with experimental data. Consider a configuration in which the rapidly moving material down the chute impinges on an obstruction wall erected perpendicular at

3404-454: A shock wave can be very intense, more like an explosion when heard at a distance (not coincidentally, since explosions create shock waves). Analogous phenomena are known outside fluid mechanics. For example, charged particles accelerated beyond the speed of light in a refractive medium (such as water, where the speed of light is less than that in a vacuum ) create visible shock effects, a phenomenon known as Cherenkov radiation . Below are

3552-496: A shock wave, an object in a given medium (such as air or water) must travel faster than the local speed of sound. In the case of an aircraft travelling at high subsonic speed, regions of air around the aircraft may be travelling at exactly the speed of sound, so that the sound waves leaving the aircraft pile up on one another, similar to a traffic jam on a motorway. When a shock wave forms, the local air pressure increases and then spreads out sideways. Because of this amplification effect,

3700-506: A single TACMAR along with about 20 Zeus EX missiles. In October 1965 the TACMAR was replaced by the upgraded MSR from the SCD studies. Since this radar had an even shorter range than TACMAR, it could not be expected to generate tracking information in time for a Zeus EX launch. PAR would thus have to be upgraded to have higher accuracy and the processing power to generate tracks that would be handed off to

3848-521: A single autonomous battery centered on a cut-down MAR called TACMAR (TACtical MAR), along with a simplified data processing system known as the Local Data Processor (LDP). This was essentially the DCDP with fewer modules installed, reducing the number of tracks it could compile and the amount of decluttering it could handle. To further reduce costs, Bell later replaced the cut-down MAR with an upgraded MSR,

3996-488: A small portion of the sky. The radar would have to survive the electrical effects of EMP , and significant effort was expended on this. It also meant that the threat tube trajectories would have to be calculated rapidly, before or between blackout periods, and the final tracking of the warheads in the 10 seconds or so between clearing the clutter and hitting their targets. This demanded a very high-performance computer, one that did not exist at that time. The centerpiece of

4144-411: A symposium was held by western European nations to discuss potential future ballistic missile defence programs. In the end, the council recommended deployment of early warning and surveillance systems as well as regionally controlled defence systems. During spring 2006 reports about negotiations between the United States, Poland, and the Czech Republic were published. The plans propose the installation of

4292-420: A system where the downstream properties are becoming subsonic: the upstream and downstream flow properties of the fluid are considered isentropic. Since the total amount of energy within the system is constant, the stagnation enthalpy remains constant over both regions. However, entropy is increasing; this must be accounted for by a drop in stagnation pressure of the downstream fluid. When analyzing shock waves in

4440-454: A system would cost an estimated $ 40 billion to build ($ 398 billion in 2024, about half the annual military budget). This led to further studies of the system to try to determine whether an ABM would be the proper way to save lives, or if there was some other plan that would do the same for less money. In the case of Zeus, for instance, it was clear that building more fallout shelters would be less expensive and save more lives. A major report on

4588-409: A target going faster than ICBM warheads. On 16 November 2020 an SM-3 Block IIA interceptor successfully destroyed an ICBM in mid-course, under Link-16 Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications ( C2BMC ). The U.S. Army Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system began production in 2008. Its stated range as a short to intermediate ballistic missile interceptor means that it

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4736-399: A turbulent shock (a breaker) that dissipates the wave's energy as sound and heat. Similar phenomena affect strong sound waves in gas or plasma, due to the dependence of the sound speed on temperature and pressure. Strong waves heat the medium near each pressure front, due to adiabatic compression of the air itself, so that high pressure fronts outrun the corresponding pressure troughs. There

4884-575: A warhead, which could be anywhere in the tube. The WSEG suggested that a single ICBM with decoys would almost certainly defeat Zeus. A mid-1961 staff report by ARPA suggested that a single large missile with multiple warheads would require four entire Zeus batteries, of 100 missiles each, to defeat it. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, today known as DARPA ) was formed in 1958 by President Dwight Eisenhower 's Secretary of Defense, Neil McElroy , in reaction to Soviet rocketry advances. US efforts had suffered from massive duplication of effort between

5032-430: Is South Korea's next anti-ballistic missile generation. It is expected to have a range of 150 km and be able to intercept targets between 40 km and 100 km of altitude, and it can also be used as an aircraft interceptor. The L-SAM system is expected to be complete and ready to use in 2024. The idea of destroying rockets before they can hit their target dates from the first use of modern missiles in warfare,

5180-572: Is a kind of pistonless rotary engine that utilizes shock waves to transfer energy between a high-energy fluid to a low-energy fluid, thereby increasing both temperature and pressure of the low-energy fluid. In memristors , under externally-applied electric field, shock waves can be launched across the transition-metal oxides, creating fast and non-volatile resistivity changes. Advanced techniques are needed to capture shock waves and to detect shock waves in both numerical computations and experimental observations. Computational fluid dynamics

5328-484: Is a theory that the sound pressure levels in brass instruments such as the trombone become high enough for steepening to occur, forming an essential part of the bright timbre of the instruments. While shock formation by this process does not normally happen to unenclosed sound waves in Earth's atmosphere, it is thought to be one mechanism by which the solar chromosphere and corona are heated, via waves that propagate up from

5476-481: Is commonly used to obtain the flow field with shock waves. Though shock waves are sharp discontinuities, in numerical solutions of fluid flow with discontinuities (shock wave, contact discontinuity or slip line), the shock wave can be smoothed out by low-order numerical method (due to numerical dissipation) or there are spurious oscillations near shock surface by high-order numerical method (due to Gibbs phenomena ). There exist some other discontinuities in fluid flow than

5624-420: Is entirely contained between them. At such control surfaces, momentum, mass flux and energy are constant; within combustion, detonations can be modelled as heat introduction across a shock wave. It is assumed the system is adiabatic (no heat exits or enters the system) and no work is being done. The Rankine–Hugoniot conditions arise from these considerations. Taking into account the established assumptions, in

5772-568: Is expected to perform much better than the Patriot did in the Gulf War. On 29 July 2004 Israel and the United States carried out a joint experiment in the US, in which the Arrow was launched against a real Scud missile. The experiment was a success, as the Arrow destroyed the Scud with a direct hit. During December 2005 the system was deployed successfully in a test against a replicated Shahab-3 missile. This feat

5920-614: Is for terminal phase interception. The current Phase-1 of the Indian ABM system can intercept ballistic missiles of range up to 2,000 km and the Phase-2 will increase it up to 5,000 km. Iran used Arman and S-300 missile systems for ballistic missile defense. The Arrow project was begun after the U.S. and Israel agreed to co-fund it on 6 May 1986. The Arrow ABM system was designed and constructed in Israel with financial support by

6068-462: Is heard as the familiar "thud" or "thump" of a sonic boom , commonly created by the supersonic flight of aircraft. The shock wave is one of several different ways in which a gas in a supersonic flow can be compressed. Some other methods are isentropic compressions, including Prandtl –Meyer compressions. The method of compression of a gas results in different temperatures and densities for a given pressure ratio which can be analytically calculated for

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6216-916: Is not designed to hit midcourse ICBMs, which can reach terminal phase speeds of mach 8 or greater. The THAAD interceptor has a reported maximum speed of mach 8, and THAAD has repeatedly proven it can intercept descending exoatmospheric missiles in a ballistic trajectory. The U.S. Army Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system was developed by the Missile Defense Agency . It combines ground-based AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar installations and mobile AN/TPY-2 X-band radars with 44 exoatmospheric interceptors stationed in underground silos around California and Alaska, to protect against low-count ICBM attacks from rogue states. Each Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) rocket carries an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) kinetic kill interceptor, with 97% probability of intercept when four interceptors are launched at

6364-645: Is the Sky Bow III (TK-3) . Since North Korea started developing its nuclear weapon program, South Korea has been under imminent danger. South Korea started its BDM program by acquiring 8 batteries of the MIM-104 Patriot ( PAC-2 ) missiles from the United States. The PAC-2 was developed to destroy incoming aircraft and is now unreliable in defending a ballistic missile attack from North Korea, as they have developed further their nuclear program. As of 2018, South Korea decided to improve its defense system by upgrading to

6512-498: Is to propose an architecture and technology maturation concept study for an endo-atmospheric interceptor to counter new, highly sophisticated emerging threats. HYDIS² is centered around the MBDA's Aquila hypersonic missile interceptor concept and will involve a consortium of 19 partners and over 30 subcontractors from 14 European countries. France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands have already confirmed their support and commitment, by signing

6660-535: The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System . Japan is currently modifying another 4 destroyers so that they can take part of their defense force against ballistic missiles, bringing the total number to 8 ships. The Moscow ABM defense system was designed with the aim of being able to intercept the ICBM warheads aimed at Moscow and other important industrial regions, and is based on: In several tests,

6808-608: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is developing a new Prithvi interceptor missile code-named PDV. The PDV is designed to take out the target missile at altitudes above 150 km (93 mi). The first PDV was successfully test fired on 27 April 2014. According to scientist V K Saraswat of the DRDO, the missiles will work in tandem to ensure a hit probability of 99.8 percent. On 15 May 2016, India successfully launched AAD renamed Ashwin from Abdul Kalam Island off

6956-543: The Fakel 5V61 (known in the west as Galosh), was developed to carry the larger warhead and carry it much further from the launch site. Further development continued, and the A-35 anti-ballistic missile system , designed to protect Moscow, became operational in 1971. A-35 was designed for exoatmospheric interceptions, and would have been highly susceptible to a well-arranged attack using multiple warheads and radar black-out techniques. A-35

7104-580: The Kapustin Yar , and intercepted by a V-1000 launched from Sary-Shagan . The dummy warhead was destroyed by the impact of 16,000 tungsten-carbide spherical impactors 140 seconds after launch, at an altitude of 25 km (82,000 ft). The V-1000 missile system was nonetheless considered not reliable enough and abandoned in favour of nuclear-armed ABMs. Retired V-1000 was used to develop 1Ya2TA sounding rocket , capable of launching 520 kg scientific payload to an altitude of 400 km. A much larger missile,

7252-698: The PAC-3 , which has a hit-to-kill capability against incoming missiles. The main reason that the South Korean anti-ballistic defense system is not very developed is because they have tried to developed their own, without help from other countries, since the beginning of the 1990s. The South Korean Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) has confirmed that it has test launched the L-SAM system in February 2022. This particular missile has been in development since 2019 and

7400-770: The Pacific Ocean . For full-scale tests, the Army built an entire Zeus base on Kwajalein Island in the Pacific, where it could be tested against ICBMs launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Test firings at Kwajalein began in June 1962; these were very successful, passing within hundreds of yards of the target warheads, and in some tests, low-flying satellites. Zeus had initially been proposed in an era when ICBMs were extremely expensive and

7548-526: The US Air Force and nuclear weapons establishments who suggested it would be much simpler to build more nuclear warheads and guarantee mutually assured destruction . Zeus was eventually cancelled in 1963. In 1958, the U.S. sought to explore whether airbursting nuclear weapons might be used to ward off ICBMs. It conducted several test explosions of low-yield nuclear weapons – 1.7kt boosted fission W25 warheads – launched from ships to very high altitudes over

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7696-400: The "Autonomous MSR". They studied a wide variety of potential deployments, starting with systems like the original Nike-X proposal with no SCDs, to deployments offering complete continental US protection with many SCD modules of various types and sizes. The deployments were arranged so that they could be built in phases, working up to complete coverage. One issue that emerged from these studies

7844-465: The ABM became what one historian calls a "technology in search of a mission". In early 1965, the Army launched a series of studies to find a mission concept that would lead to deployment. One of the original deployment plans for Zeus had been a defensive system for SAC . The Air Force argued against such a system, in favor of building more ICBMs of their own. Their logic was that every Soviet missile launched in

7992-581: The Army's, especially in the case of Zeus, which appeared to be easily outwitted. Things changed in the early 1960s when McNamara placed limits on the Air Force fleet of 1,000 Minuteman missiles and 54 Titan IIs . This meant that the Air Force could not respond to new Soviet missiles by building more of their own. An even greater existential threat to Minuteman than Soviet missiles was the US Navy 's Polaris missile fleet, whose invulnerability led to questions about

8140-467: The Army, Air Force, and Navy, and seemed to be accomplishing little in comparison to the Soviets. ARPA was initially handed the mission of overseeing all of these efforts. As the problems with Zeus became clear, McElroy also asked ARPA to consider the antimissile problem and come up with other solutions. The resulting Project Defender was extremely broad in scope, considering everything from minor Zeus system upgrades to far-out concepts like antigravity and

8288-694: The Aster 30 Block II, which can destroy ballistic missiles up to a maximum range of 3,000 km (1,900 mi). It will incorporate a kill vehicle warhead. Involving France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands , the HYDIS² (HYpersonic Defence Interceptor Study) was announced on June 20, 2023 and is a project led by MBDA . It was selected in March 2023 and is partially funded by the European Defense Fund (EDF). Its aim

8436-559: The Aster 30 missile and on 1 December 2011 a successful interception of a Black Sparrow ballistic target missile. The Horizon-class frigates in French and Italian service, the Royal Navy 's Type 45 destroyers , and the French and Italian FREMM-class frigates are all armed with PAAMS (or variants of it) integrating Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles. France and Italy are developing a new variant,

8584-597: The Chinese Defence Ministry, the missile launch is defensive in character and is not aimed against any countries. Experts hailed China's technological breakthrough because it is difficult to intercept ballistic missiles that have reached the highest point and speed in the middle of their course. Only two countries, including the US, have successfully conducted such a test in the past decade. On 4 February 2021, China successfully conducted mid-course intercept anti-ballistic missile test. Military analysts indicates that

8732-413: The Earth's atmosphere. The Tunguska event and the 2013 Russian meteor event are the best documented evidence of the shock wave produced by a massive meteoroid . When the 2013 meteor entered into the Earth's atmosphere with an energy release equivalent to 100 or more kilotons of TNT, dozens of times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima , the meteor's shock wave produced damage as in

8880-530: The German V-1 and V-2 program of World War II . British fighters destroyed some V-1 "buzz bombs" in flight, although concentrated barrages of heavy anti-aircraft artillery had greater success. Under the lend-lease program, 200 US 90 mm AA guns with SCR-584 radars and Western Electric / Bell Labs computers were sent to the UK. These demonstrated a 95% success rate against V-1s that flew into their range. The V-2,

9028-482: The Hardsite concept, by 1966 the Air Force came to oppose it largely for the same reasons it had opposed Zeus in the same role. If money was to be spent on protecting Minuteman, they felt that money would be better spent by the Air Force than the Army. As Morton Halperin noted: In part this was a reflex reaction, a desire not to have Air Force missiles protected by "Army" ABMs. ... The Air Force clearly preferred that

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9176-414: The Hardsite concepts would cost about the same as the thin defense, and provide some protection against a certain class of counterforce attacks. Anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile ( ABM ) is a surface-to-air missile designed to counter ballistic missiles (missile defense). Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear , chemical , biological , or conventional warheads in

9324-700: The I-67 concept suggested building a lightweight defense against very limited attacks. When the People's Republic of China exploded their first H-bomb in June 1967, I-67 was promoted as a defense against a Chinese attack, and this system became Sentinel in October. Nike-X development, in its original form, ended. In 1955 the US Army began considering the possibility of further upgrading their Nike B surface-to-air missile (SAM) as an anti-ballistic missile to intercept ICBMs. Bell Labs ,

9472-584: The Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the American defense contractor Raytheon , designed to intercept tactical ballistic missiles, as well as medium- to long-range rockets and slower-flying cruise missiles, such as those possessed by Hezbollah , fired at ranges from 40 km to 300 km. It is designed with the aim of intercepting the newest generation of tactical ballistic missiles, such as Iskander . Since 1998, when North Korea launched

9620-665: The MSRs. During this same time, Bell had noted problems with long wavelength radars in the presence of radar blackout. Both of these issues argued for a change from VHF to UHF frequencies for the PAR. Further work along these lines led to the Nike-X Deployment Study, or DEPEX. DEPEX outlined a deployment that started out very similar to Nth Country, with a few bases primarily using Nike EX to provide lightweight cover, but which also included design features that allowed more bases to be added as

9768-544: The Netherlands, Finland and Germany. Competing against HYDIS², the EU HYDEF (European Hypersonic Defence Interceptor) also covers the concept phase to develop an endo-atmospheric interceptor and is related to TWISTER. Selected in July 2022, it is also partially funded by the EDF. It is coordinated by Spain's SENER Aeroespacial Sociedad Anonima , while Germany's Diehl Defence is serving as

9916-485: The Nike-X program was canceled and replaced by a much lighter defense system known as Sentinel . The Nike-X system was developed in response to limitations of the earlier Nike Zeus system. Zeus' radars could only track single targets, and it was calculated that a salvo of only four ICBMs would have a 90% chance of hitting a Zeus base. The attacker could also use radar reflectors or high-altitude nuclear explosions to obscure

10064-407: The Nike-X system was MAR, using the then-new active electronically scanned array (AESA) concept to allow it to generate multiple virtual radar beams, simulating any number of mechanical radars needed. While one beam scanned the sky for new targets, others were formed to examine the threat tubes and generate high-quality tracking information very early in the engagement. More beams were formed to track

10212-487: The Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR), which would operate cheaper electronics at VHF frequencies. The high-altitude explosions that had caused so much concern for Nike Zeus due to blackout had been further studied in the early 1960s and led to a new possibility for missile defense. When a nuclear warhead explodes in a dense atmosphere, its initial high-energy X-rays ionize the air, blocking other X-rays. In

10360-511: The RVs once they had been picked out, and still more to track the Sprints on their way to the interceptions. To make all of this work, MAR required data processing capabilities on an unprecedented level, so Bell proposed building the system using the newly invented resistor–transistor logic small-scale integrated circuits . Nike-X centralized the battle control systems at their Defense Centers, consisting of

10508-438: The Soviets was to drop their warheads just outside the range of the defensive missiles, upwind of the target. Ground bursts would throw enormous amounts of radioactive dust into the air, causing fallout that would be almost as deadly as a direct attack. This would make the ABM system essentially useless unless the cities were also extensively protected from fallout. Those same fallout shelters would save many lives on their own, to

10656-469: The Soviets would have 400–700 ICBMs deployed by 1969, and their deployment eventually reached 1,601 launchers, limited by the SALT agreements . While Nike-X could be expected to attack these with a reasonable 1 to 1 exchange ratio, compared to Zeus' 20 to 1, it could only do so over a limited area. Most nationwide deployment scenarios contained thousands of Sprint missiles protecting only the largest US cities. Such

10804-597: The U.S. Patriot missiles. China has acquired and is license-producing the S-300PMU-2/S-300PMU-1 series of terminal ABM-capable SAMs. China-produced HQ-9 SAM system may possess terminal ABM capabilities. PRC Navy's operating modern air-defense destroyers known as the Type 052C Destroyer and Type 051C Destroyer are armed with naval HQ-9 missiles. The HQ-19, similar to the THAAD , was first tested in 2003, and subsequently

10952-476: The U.S. and other states (although most strategic arms reduction treaties were between the Soviet Union and U.S., not NATO). The German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier , a Social Democrat, expressed severe concerns about the way in which the U.S. had conveyed its plans to its European partners and criticised the U.S. administration for not having consulted Russia prior to announcing its endeavours to deploy

11100-480: The U.S. military have demonstrated the feasibility of destroying long and short range ballistic missiles. Combat effectiveness of newer systems against 1950s tactical ballistic missiles seems very high, as the MIM-104 Patriot (PAC-1 and PAC-2) had a 100% success rate in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The U.S. Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD) uses RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 , which hit

11248-512: The US believed that the Soviet fleet contained a few dozen missiles. At a time when the US deterrent fleet was based entirely on manned bombers, even a small number of missiles aimed at Strategic Air Command 's (SAC) bases presented a serious threat. Two Zeus deployment plans were outlined. One was a heavy defensive system that would provide protection over the entire continental United States, but require as many as 7000 Zeus missiles. McNamara supported

11396-505: The US wished to limit casualties to 10 percent. ABMs would only be cheaper than ICBMs if the US was willing to allow over half its population to die in the exchange. When he realized he was using outdated exchange rates for the Soviet rouble , the exchange ratio for the 30 percent casualty rate jumped to 20-to-1. As the cost of defeating Nike-X by building more ICBMs was less than the cost of building Nike-X to counter them, reviewers concluded that

11544-404: The United States by a multibillion-dollar development program called "Minhelet Homa" (Wall Administration) with the participation of companies like Israel Military Industries , Tadiran and Israel Aerospace Industries . During 1998 the Israeli military conducted a successful test of their Arrow missile. Designed to intercept incoming missiles travelling at up to 2-mile/s (3 km/s), the Arrow

11692-491: The aim of creating a missile capable of intercepting the V-2. But defences against Soviet long-range bombers took priority until 1957, when the Soviet Union demonstrated its advances in ICBM technology with the launch of Sputnik , the Earth's first artificial satellite. The US Army accelerated development of their LIM-49 Nike Zeus system in response. Zeus was criticized throughout its development program, especially from those within

11840-609: The atmosphere) interceptor system, intercepted a Prithvi-II ballistic missile. The PAD missile has the secondary stage of the Prithvi missile and can reach altitude of 80 km (50 mi). During the test, the target missile was intercepted at a 50 km (31 mi) altitude. On 6 December 2007, the Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile system was tested successfully. This missile is an endo-atmospheric interceptor with an altitude of 30 km (19 mi). First reported in 2009,

11988-498: The case, but Argus returned key data about a related effect, the nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NEMP). Other countries were also involved in early ABM research. A more advanced project was at CARDE in Canada, which researched the main problems of ABM systems. A key problem with any radar system is that the signal is in the form of a cone, which spreads with distance from the transmitter. For long-distance interceptions like ABM systems,

12136-564: The coast of Odisha . As of 8 January 2020, the BMD programme has been completed and the Indian Air Force and the DRDO are awaiting government's final approval before the system is deployed to protect New Delhi and then Mumbai. After these two cities, it will be deployed in other major cities and regions. India has structured a five-layer missile shield for Delhi as of 9 June 2019: PAD and PDV are designed for mid-course interception, while AAD

12284-502: The construction funds allocated for Zeus would not be released, and the funding would instead be used for development of a new system using the latest technologies. The name Nike-X was apparently an ad hoc suggestion by Jack Ruina , the director of ARPA, who was tasked with presenting the options to the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). With the ending of Zeus, the ZMAR radar effort

12432-411: The construction of an ABM system would simply prompt the Soviets to build more ICBMs. This led to serious concerns about a new arms race , which it was believed would increase the chance of an accidental war. When the numbers were presented to McNamara, according to Kent: [He] observed that this was a race that we probably would not win and should avoid. He noted that it would be difficult indeed to stay

12580-472: The course with a strategy that aimed to limit the damage. The detractors would proclaim that, with 70 percent surviving, there would be upwards of 60 million dead. Despite its technical capabilities, Nike-X still shared one seemingly intractable problem that had first been noticed with Zeus. Facing an ABM system, the Soviets would change their targeting priorities to maximize damage, by attacking smaller, undefended cities for instance. As one DoD official put it at

12728-502: The decoys to be picked out earlier. Used as radio receivers, they could also triangulate any radio broadcasts coming from the threat tube, which the enemy might use as a radar jammer . When the system was first being proposed it was not clear whether the phased-array systems could provide the accuracy needed to guide the missiles to a successful interception at very long ranges. Early concepts retained Zeus Missile Tracking Radars and Target Tracking Radars (MTRs and TTRs) for this purpose. In

12876-517: The end of a long and steep channel. Impact leads to a sudden change in the flow regime from a fast moving supercritical thin layer to a stagnant thick heap. This flow configuration is particularly interesting because it is analogous to some hydraulic and aerodynamic situations associated with flow regime changes from supercritical to subcritical flows. Astrophysical environments feature many different types of shock waves. Some common examples are supernovae shock waves or blast waves travelling through

13024-440: The end, the MAR proved more than capable of the required resolution, and the additional radars were dropped. Nike-X had been defined in the early 1960s as a system to defend US cities and industrial centers against a heavy Soviet attack during the 1970s. By 1965 the growing fleets of ICBMs in the inventories of both the US and USSR were making the cost of such a system very expensive. NIE 11-8-63, published 18 October 1963, estimated

13172-459: The energy and speed of a shock wave alone dissipates relatively quickly with distance. When a shock wave passes through matter, energy is preserved but entropy increases. This change in the matter's properties manifests itself as a decrease in the energy which can be extracted as work, and as a drag force on supersonic objects ; shock waves are strongly irreversible processes . Shock waves can be: Some other terms: The abruptness of change in

13320-445: The entire US. The system would be unable to deal with large numbers of warheads, but that was not a concern for a system that would only be tasked with beating off small attacks. With only small numbers of targets, the full MAR was not needed and Bell initially proposed TACMAR to fill this need. This would have a shorter detection range, so a long range radar like PAR would be needed for early detection. The missile sites would consist of

13468-427: The features of the medium, that characterize shock waves, can be viewed as a phase transition : the pressure–time diagram of a supersonic object propagating shows how the transition induced by a shock wave is analogous to a dynamic phase transition . When an object (or disturbance) moves faster than the information can propagate into the surrounding fluid, then the fluid near the disturbance cannot react or "get out of

13616-427: The first true ballistic missile, has no known record of being destroyed in the air. SCR-584's could be used to plot the trajectories of the missiles and provide some warning, but were more useful in backtracking their ballistic trajectory and determining the rough launch locations. The Allies launched Operation Crossbow to find and destroy V-2s before launch, but these operations were largely ineffective. In one instance

13764-461: The funds for missile defense be used by the Air Force to develop new hard rock silos or mobile systems. During the project's development phase, the siting and size of the Nike-X bases became a major complaint of smaller cities. Originally intended to protect only the largest urban areas, Nike-X was designed to be built at a very large size with many missiles controlled by an expensive computer and radar network. Smaller sites were to be left undefended in

13912-454: The go-ahead to begin deployment of such a system on 17 August 1956. Their test system, known simply as System A, was based on the V-1000 missile, which was similar to the early US efforts. The first successful test interception was carried out on 24 November 1960, and the first with a live warhead on 4 March 1961. In this test, a dummy warhead was released by a R-12 ballistic missile launched from

14060-453: The highest layers of the atmosphere, there is too little gas for this to occur, and the X-rays can travel long distances. Sufficient X-ray exposure to an RV can damage its heat shields . In late 1964 Bell was considering the role of an X-ray-armed Zeus missile in the Nike-X system. A January 1965 report outlines this possibility, noting that it would have to have a much larger warhead dedicated to

14208-418: The inherent inaccuracy of the radar makes an interception difficult. CARDE considered using a terminal guidance system to address the accuracy concerns, and developed several advanced infrared detectors for this role. They also studied a number of missile airframe designs, a new and much more powerful solid rocket fuel, and numerous systems for testing it all. After a series of drastic budget reductions during

14356-447: The insufficient aspects of numerical and experimental tools lead to two important problems in practices: (1) some shock waves can not be detected or their positions are detected wrong, (2) some flow structures which are not shock waves are wrongly detected to be shock waves. In fact, correct capturing and detection of shock waves are important since shock waves have the following influences: (1) causing loss of total pressure, which may be

14504-402: The interstellar medium, the bow shock caused by the Earth's magnetic field colliding with the solar wind and shock waves caused by galaxies colliding with each other. Another interesting type of shock in astrophysics is the quasi-steady reverse shock or termination shock that terminates the ultra relativistic wind from young pulsars . Shock waves are generated by meteoroids when they enter

14652-467: The late 1950s the research ended. One offshoot of the project was Gerald Bull 's system for inexpensive high-speed testing, consisting of missile airframes shot from a sabot round, which would later be the basis of Project HARP . Another was the CRV7 and Black Brant rockets, which used the new solid rocket fuel. The Soviet military had requested funding for ABM research as early as 1953, but were only given

14800-562: The launch, Bell proposed building a much simpler radar at most launch sites, the Missile Site Radar (MSR). MSR would have just enough power and logic to generate tracks for its outgoing Sprint missiles and would hand that information off to the DCDPS using conventional telephone lines and modems . Bell noted that the MSR could also provide a useful second-angle look at threat tubes, which might allow

14948-478: The name Hardpoint . This led to the construction of the Hardpoint Demonstration Array Radar, and an even faster missile concept known as HiBEX. This proved interesting enough for the Army and Air Force to collaborate on a follow-up study, Hardsite. The first Hardsite concept, HSD-I, considered the defending of bases within urban areas that would have Nike-X protection anyway. An example might be

15096-508: The nature of the threat changed. The study described a four-phase deployment sequence that added more and more terminal defenses as the sophistication of the Nth Country missiles increased over time. In December 1966, the Army asked Bell to prepare a detailed deployment concept combining the light defense of Nth Country with the point defense of Hardsite. On 17 January 1967, this became the I-67 project, which delivered its results on 5 July. I-67

15244-487: The need for ground-based ICBMs. The Air Force responded by changing missions; the increasingly accurate Minuteman was now tasked with attacking Soviet missile silos, which the less accurate Navy missiles could not do. If the force was going to carry out this mission there had to be the expectation that enough missiles could survive a Soviet attack for a successful counterstrike. An ABM might provide that assurance. A fresh look at this concept started at ARPA around 1963–64 under

15392-449: The order of dozens of miles, neither of which appeared possible. This was, however, just before the emergence of high-speed computing systems. By the mid-1950s, things had changed considerably, and many forces worldwide were considering ABM systems. The American armed forces began experimenting with anti-missile missiles soon after World War II, as the extent of German research into rocketry became clear. Project Wizard began in 1946, with

15540-553: The original Nike-X concept since the system was simply too expensive to build with only a few interceptors. These cities complained that they were not only being left open to attack, but that their lack of defenses might make them primary targets. This led to a series of studies on the Small City Defense (SCD) concept. By 1964 SCD had become part of the baseline Nike-X deployment plans, with every major city being provided some level of defensive system. SCD would consist primarily of

15688-544: The overall technical lead. They are heading a consortium of partners and subcontractors from various EU countries. India has an active ABM development effort using indigenously developed and integrated radars, and indigenous missiles. In November 2006, India successfully conducted the PADE (Prithvi Air Defence Exercise) in which an anti-ballistic missile, called the Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) , an exo-atmospheric (outside

15836-505: The point that the ABM seemed almost superfluous. While reporting to Congress on the issue in the spring of 1964, McNamara noted: I personally will never recommend an anti-ICBM program unless a fallout program does accompany it. I believe that even if we do not have an anti-ICBM program, we nonetheless should proceed with the fallout shelter program. Under any reasonable set of assumptions, even an advanced system like Nike-X offered only marginal protection and did so for huge costs. Around 1965,

15984-410: The primary contractor for Nike, was asked to study the issue. Bell returned a report stating that the missile could be upgraded to the required performance relatively easily, but the system would need extremely powerful radar systems to detect the warhead while it was still far enough away to give the missile time to launch. All of this appeared to be within the state of the art , and in early 1957 Bell

16132-429: The primary weapon in the following Sentinel system, and in the modified Sentinel system that was later renamed Safeguard . In February 1965 the Army asked Bell to consider different deployment concepts under the Nth Country study. This examined what sort of system would be needed to provide protection against an unsophisticated attack with a limited number of warheads. Using Zeus EX, a few bases could provide coverage for

16280-555: The problem with nuclear blackout. The lower edge of the extended fireball used to induce this effect extended down to about 60 km, the same altitude at which decluttering became effective. Hence, low-altitude intercepts meant that deliberate attempts to create a blackout would not affect the tracking and guidance of the Sprint missile . Just as importantly, because the Sprint's own warheads would be going off far below this altitude, their fireballs would be much smaller and would only black out

16428-472: The production of X-rays, and would have to operate at higher altitudes to maximize the effect. A major advantage was that accuracy needs were much reduced, from a minimum of about 800 feet (240 m) for the original Zeus' neutron-based attack, to something on the order of a few miles. This meant that the range limits of the original Zeus, which were defined by the accuracy of the radars to about 75 miles (121 km), were greatly eased. This, in turn, meant that

16576-492: The public. A military spokesman said that tests had been done on two sites, one of them a business park in central Tokyo, and Ichigaya – a site not far from the Imperial Palace. Along with the PAC-3, Japan has installed a US-developed ship-based anti-ballistic missile system, which was tested successfully on 18 December 2007. Japan has 4 destroyers of this type capable of carrying RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 and equipped with

16724-511: The purpose of comparison, in supersonic flows, additional increased expansion may be achieved through an expansion fan , also known as a Prandtl–Meyer expansion fan . The accompanying expansion wave may approach and eventually collide and recombine with the shock wave, creating a process of destructive interference. The sonic boom associated with the passage of a supersonic aircraft is a type of sound wave produced by constructive interference . Unlike solitons (another kind of nonlinear wave),

16872-473: The recently invented laser . Meanwhile, one improvement to Zeus was already being studied: a new phased-array radar replacing Zeus' mechanical ones would greatly increase the number of targets and interceptors that a single site could handle. Much more powerful computers were needed to match this performance. Additionally, the antennas were mounted directly in concrete and would have increased blast resistance. Initial studies at Bell Labs started in 1960 on what

17020-563: The reflectors and explosions. Nike-X intended to wait until the enemy warheads descended below this altitude and then attack them using a very fast missile known as Sprint . The entire engagement would last only a few seconds and could take place as low as 25,000 feet (7,600 m). To provide the needed speed and accuracy, as well as deal with multi-warhead attacks, Nike-X used a new radar system and building-filling computers that could track hundreds of objects at once and control salvos of many Sprints. Many dozens of warheads would need to arrive at

17168-567: The same time to overwhelm the system. Building a complete deployment would have been extremely expensive, on the order of the total yearly budget of the Department of Defense . Robert McNamara , the Secretary of Defense, believed that the cost could not be justified and worried it would lead to a further nuclear arms race . He directed the teams to consider deployments where a limited number of interceptors might still be militarily useful. Among these,

17316-427: The shock wave can be treated as either a line or a plane if the flow field is two-dimensional or three-dimensional, respectively. Shock waves are formed when a pressure front moves at supersonic speeds and pushes on the surrounding air. At the region where this occurs, sound waves travelling against the flow reach a point where they cannot travel any further upstream and the pressure progressively builds in that region;

17464-458: The shock wave. The slip surface (3D) or slip line (2D) is a plane across which the tangent velocity is discontinuous, while pressure and normal velocity are continuous. Across the contact discontinuity, the pressure and velocity are continuous and the density is discontinuous. A strong expansion wave or shear layer may also contain high gradient regions which appear to be a discontinuity. Some common features of these flow structures and shock waves and

17612-410: The shore. In shallow water, the speed of surface waves is dependent on the depth of the water. An incoming ocean wave has a slightly higher wave speed near the crest of each wave than near the troughs between waves, because the wave height is not infinitesimal compared to the depth of the water. The crests overtake the troughs until the leading edge of the wave forms a vertical face and spills over to form

17760-555: The so-called " missile gap ". It was later shown that the number of Soviet missiles did not reach the hundreds until the late 1960s, and at the time they had only four. Zeus used mechanically steered radars, like the Nike SAMs before it, limiting the number of targets it could attack at once. A study by the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) calculated that the Soviets had a 90 percent chance of successfully hitting

17908-431: The solar interior. A shock wave may be described as the furthest point upstream of a moving object which "knows" about the approach of the object. In this description, the shock wave position is defined as the boundary between the zone having no information about the shock-driving event and the zone aware of the shock-driving event, analogous with the light cone described in the theory of special relativity . To produce

18056-402: The southern Atlantic Ocean. Such an explosion releases a burst of X-rays in the Earth's atmosphere, causing secondary showers of charged particles over an area hundreds of miles across. These can become trapped in the Earth' magnetic field, creating an artificial radiation belt. It was believed that this might be strong enough to damage warheads traveling through the layer. This proved not to be

18204-428: The surface, a nonlinear phenomenon arises where the shock wave will form a continuous pattern around the body. These are termed bow shocks . In these cases, the 1d flow model is not valid and further analysis is needed to predict the pressure forces which are exerted on the surface. Shock waves can form due to steepening of ordinary waves. The best-known example of this phenomenon is ocean waves that form breakers on

18352-439: The target. Since 2004, the United States Army plans to replace Raytheon 's Patriot missile (SAM) engagement control station (ECS), along with seven other forms of ABM defense command systems, with Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) designed to shoot down short, medium, and intermediate range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase by intercepting with a hit-to-kill approach. Northrop Grumman

18500-649: The tense situations with China, Taiwan developed the Sky Bow (or Tien-Kung ), this surface-to-air missile can intercept and destroy enemy aircraft and ballistic missiles. These system was created in partnership with Raytheon Technologies , using Lockheed Martin ADAR-HP as inspiration to create the Chang Bai S-band radar system. The missiles have a range of 200 km and was designed to take on fast moving vehicles with low radar cross-section. The latest variant of this system

18648-456: The test and dozens done before reflects China's improvement in the area. Rumored midcourse missiles: The Aster is a family of missiles jointly developed by France and Italy . The Aster 30 variants are capable of ballistic missile defense. An export customer, the United Kingdom also operates the Aster 30 Block 0. On 18 October 2010, France announced a successful tactical ABM test of

18796-406: The threat tube begins to reenter the denser portions of the atmosphere, at altitudes around 60 kilometers (37 mi). Nike-X intended to wait until the decluttering was complete, meaning the interceptions would take place only seconds before the warheads hit their targets, between 5 and 30 miles (8.0–48.3 km) away from the base. Low-altitude intercepts would also have the advantage of reducing

18944-436: The time: It was a very expensive terminal defense system which for a given amount of money could provide protection to some number of cities, but leaving many totally unprotected, and it suffered the flaw of any terminal defense system - namely that every piece contributes to the cost by the enemy can choose where to attack and only a small part of the system can be brought to bear to counter such an attack. Another solution for

19092-451: The topic by PSAC in October 1961 made this point, suggesting that Zeus without shelters was useless, and that having Zeus might lead the US to "introduce dangerously misleading assumptions concerning the ability of the US to protect its cities". This led to a series of increasingly sophisticated models to better predict the effectiveness of an ABM system and what the opposition would do to improve their performance against it. A key development

19240-452: The warheads had to land within a short distance of a missile silo to damage it, any warheads that could be seen to be falling outside that area were simply ignored – only those entering the "Site Protection Volume" needed to be attacked. At the time, Soviet inertial navigation systems (INS) were not particularly accurate. This acted as a force multiplier , allowing a few Sprints to defend against many ICBMs. Although initially supportive of

19388-425: The warheads until they were too close to attack, making a single-warhead attack highly likely to succeed. Zeus would have been useful in the late 1950s when the Soviets had only a few dozen missiles, but would be of little use by the early 1960s when it was believed they would have hundreds. The key concept that led to Nike-X was that the rapidly thickening atmosphere below 60 kilometers (37 mi) altitude disrupted

19536-423: The way" before the disturbance arrives. In a shock wave the properties of the fluid ( density , pressure , temperature , flow velocity , Mach number ) change almost instantaneously. Measurements of the thickness of shock waves in air have resulted in values around 200 nm (about 10 in), which is on the same order of magnitude as the mean free path of gas molecules. In reference to the continuum, this implies

19684-400: Was also possible to deploy radar decoys to confuse the defense. Decoys are made of lightweight materials, often strips of aluminum or mylar balloons, which can be packed in with the reentry vehicle (RV), adding little weight. In space, these are ejected to create a threat tube a few kilometers across and tens of kilometers long. Zeus had to get within about 1,000 feet (300 m) to kill

19832-511: Was also proposed. Despite the development of missiles, the programme was slowed down due to financial and political reasons. It was finally closed down during 1980 under a new leadership of Deng Xiaoping as it was seemingly deemed unnecessary after the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States and the closure of the US Safeguard ABM system. In March 2006, China tested an interceptor system comparable to

19980-699: Was essentially Nth Country but with more bases near Minuteman fields, armed primarily with Sprint. The wide-area Zeus and short-range Sprint bases would both be supported by the PAR network. The basic outlines of these various studies were becoming clear by 1966. The heavy defense from the original Nike-X proposals would cost about $ 40 billion ($ 376 billion in 2024) and offer limited protection and damage prevention in an all-out attack, but would be expected to blunt or completely defeat any smaller attack. The thin defense of Nth Country would be much less expensive, around $ 5 billion ($ 47 billion in 2024), but would only have any effect at all under certain limited scenarios. Finally,

20128-568: Was established from 1969 for the purpose of developing Project 640. The project was to involve at least three elements, including the necessary sensors and guidance/command system, the Fan Ji (FJ) missile interceptor, and the XianFeng missile-intercepting cannon. The FJ-1 had completed two successful flight tests during 1979, while the low-altitude interceptor FJ-2 completed some successful flight tests using scaled prototypes. A high altitude FJ-3 interceptor

20276-514: Was given the go-ahead to develop what was then known as Nike II. Considerable interservice rivalry between the Army and Air Force led to the Nike II being redefined and delayed several times. These barriers were swept aside in late 1957 after the launch of the R-7 Semyorka , the first Soviet ICBM. The design was further upgraded, given the name Zeus, and assigned the highest development priority. Zeus

20424-721: Was little atmosphere to carry a shock wave , it mounted a 400  kiloton (kT) warhead. The search radar was a rotating triangle 120 feet (37 m) wide, able to pick out warheads while still over 600 nautical miles (1,100 km) away, an especially difficult problem given the small size of a typical warhead. A new transistorized digital computer offered the performance needed to calculate trajectories for intercepts against warheads traveling over 5 miles per second (8.0 km/s; Mach 24). The Zeus missile began testing in 1959 at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) and early launches were generally successful. Longer range testing took place at Naval Air Station Point Mugu , firing out over

20572-415: Was politically unacceptable. This led to proposals for a new radar dedicated solely to the early warning role, determining only which MAR or SCD would ultimately have to deal with the threat. Used primarily in the first minutes of the attack, and not responsible for the engagements, the system could be considered disposable and did not need anything like the sophistication or hardening of the MAR. This led to

20720-603: Was renamed MAR, and plans for an even more powerful version, MAR-II, became the central part of the Nike-X concept. Decoys are lighter than the RV, and therefore suffer higher atmospheric drag as they begin to reenter the atmosphere. This will eventually cause the RV to move out in front of the decoys. The RV can often be picked out earlier by examining the threat tube and watching for objects that have lower deceleration. This process, known as atmospheric filtering , or more generally, decluttering , will not provide accurate information until

20868-552: Was repeated on 11 February 2007. The Arrow 3 system is capable of exo-atmosphere interception of ballistic missiles, including of ICBMs . It also acts as an anti-satellite weapon. Lieutenant General Patrick J. O'Reilly, Director of the US Missile Defense Agency , said: "The design of Arrow 3 promises to be an extremely capable system, more advanced than what we have ever attempted in the U.S. with our programs." On 10 December 2015 Arrow 3 scored its first intercept in

21016-637: Was selected as the prime contractor in 2010; the Army spent $ 2.7 billion on the program between 2009 and 2020. IBCS engagement stations will support identification and tracking of targets using sensor fusion from disparate data streams, and selection of appropriate kill vehicles from available launcher systems. In February 2022 THAAD radar and TFCC (THAAD Fire Control & Communication) demonstrated their interoperability with Patriot PAC-3 MSE missile launchers, engaging targets using both THAAD and Patriot interceptors. Procurement of MIM-104 Patriot and indigenous Tien-Kung anti-ballistic missile systems. With

21164-447: Was similar to the two Nike SAM designs that preceded it. It used a long-range search radar to pick up targets, separate radars to track the target and interceptor missiles in flight, and a computer to calculate intercept points. The missile itself was much larger than earlier designs, with a range of up to 200 miles (320 km), compared to Hercules' 75 miles (121 km). To ensure a kill at 100,000 feet (30 km) altitude, where there

21312-430: Was that nuclear fireballs expanded to very large sizes at high altitudes, rendering everything behind them invisible to radar. This was known as nuclear blackout . By the time an enemy warhead passed through the fireball, about 60 kilometers (37 mi) above the base, it would only be about eight seconds from impact. That was not enough time for the radar to lock on and fire a Zeus before the warhead hit its target. It

21460-484: Was the Prim-Read theory , which provided an entirely mathematical solution to generating the ideal defensive layout. Using a Prim-Read layout for Nike-X, Air Force Brigadier General Glenn Kent began considering Soviet responses. His 1964 report produced a cost-exchange ratio that required $ 2 of defense for every $ 1 of offense if one wanted to limit US casualties to 30 percent of the population. The cost increased to 6-to-1 if

21608-440: Was the problem of providing early warning to the SCD sites. The SCD's MSR radars provided detection at perhaps 100 miles (160 km), which meant targets would appear on their radars only seconds before launches would have to be carried out. In a sneak attack scenario, there would not be enough time to receive command authority for the release of nuclear weapons. This meant the bases would require launch on warning authority, which

21756-664: Was then known as the Zeus Multi-function Array Radar, or ZMAR. In June 1961, Western Electric and Sylvania were selected to build a prototype, with Sperry Rand Univac providing the control computer. By late 1962 a decision on whether or not to deploy Zeus was looming. Bell began considering a replacement for the Zeus missile that would operate at much shorter ranges, and in October sent out study contracts to three contractors to be returned in February. Even before these were returned, in January 1963 McNamara announced that

21904-566: Was upgraded during the 1980s to a two-layer system, the A-135 . The Gorgon (SH-11/ABM-4) long-range missile was designed to handle intercepts outside the atmosphere, and the Gazelle (SH-08/ABM-3) short-range missile endoatmospheric intercepts that eluded Gorgon. The A-135 system is considered to be technologically equivalent to the United States Safeguard system of 1975. Shock wave For

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