Development
Starting in the late 1950s, the United States began development of anti-satellite weapons. The first United States anti-satellite weapon was Bold Orion Weapon System 199B. Like the ASM-135, the Bold Orion missile was air-launched; but in this case from a B-47 Stratojet. The Bold Orion was tested in 19 October 1959 against the Explorer 6 satellite. The two-stage Bold Orion missile passed within 4 miles (6.4 km) of Explorer 6. From this distance, only a relatively large yield nuclear warhead would likely have destroyed the target.
Starting in 1960 the Department of Defense (DoD) started a program called SPIN (SPace INtercept). In 1962, the United States Navy launched Caleb rockets as part of the Satellite Interceptor Program, with the objective of developing an anti-satellite weapon.
The United States developed direct ascent anti-satellite weapons. A United States Army Nike Zeus missile armed with a nuclear warhead destroyed an orbiting satellite in May 1963. One missile from this system known as Project MUDFLAP and later as Project 505 was available for launch from 1964 until 1967. A nuclear armed Thor anti-satellite system deployed by the United States Air Force under Program 437 eventually replaced the Project 505 Nike Zeus in 1967. The Program 437 Thor missile system remained in limited deployment until 1975. One drawback of nuclear armed anti-satellite weapons was they could also potentially damage United States reconnaissance satellites. As a result the United States anti-satellite weapons development effort were re-directed to develop systems that did not require the use of nuclear weapons.
After the Soviet Union demonstrated an operational co-orbital anti-satellite system, in 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter directed the USAF to develop and deploy a new anti-satellite system.
In 1978, the USAF started a new program initially designated the Prototype Miniature Air-Launched Segment (PMALS) and Air Force System Command's Space Division established a system program office. The USAF issued a Request for Proposal for the Air Launched Miniature Vehicle. The requirement was for an air-launched missile that could be used against satellites in low earth orbit.
In 1979, the USAF issued a contract to LTV Aerospace to begin work on the ALMV. The LTV Aerospace design featured a multi-stage missile with a infrared homing kinetic energy warhead.
Read more about this topic: ASM-135 ASAT
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“On fields all drenched with blood he made his record in war, abstained from lawless violence when left on the plantation, and received his freedom in peace with moderation. But he holds in this Republic the position of an alien race among a people impatient of a rival. And in the eyes of some it seems that no valor redeems him, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to him.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
“And then ... he flung open the door of my compartment, and ushered in “Ma young and lovely lady!” I muttered to myself with some bitterness. “And this is, of course, the opening scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those subordinate characters that only turn up when needed for the development of her destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the church, waiting to greet the Happy Pair!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)