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High Endoatmospheric Defense Interceptor
High Endoatmospheric Defense Interceptor (HEDI) was the atmospheric missile defense layer developed for the Strategic Defense Initiative, along with Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interceptor Subsystem. It consisted of a two-stage launch vehicle (booster) and an infrared homing kill vehicle with a conventional warhead. Hughes Aircraft and Aerojet were contractors, and McDonnell Douglas was the system integrator. See also *Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), formerly Theater High Altitude Area Defense, is an American anti-ballistic missile defense system designed to shoot down short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their termi ... References External links * Strategic Defense Initiative Anti-ballistic missiles of the United States {{Missile-stub ...
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White Sands Missile Range Museum-98 (8326903749)
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on television and computer screens is created by a mixture of red, blue, and green light. The color white can be given with white pigments, especially titanium dioxide. In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white as a symbol of purity, and Romans wore white togas as symbols of citizenship. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, and a white lamb sacrifice and purity. It was the royal color of the kings of France, and of the monarchist movement that opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922). Greek and Roman temples were faced with white marble, and beginning in the 18th century, with the advent of neoclassical architecture, white became the most common color of new churches ...
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Missile Defense
Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), its application has broadened to include shorter-ranged non-nuclear tactical and theater missiles. China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Russia, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States have all developed such air defense systems. Missile defense categories Missile defense can be divided into categories based on various characteristics: type/range of missile intercepted, the trajectory phase where the intercept occurs, and whether intercepted inside or outside the Earth's atmosphere: Type/range of missile intercepted These types/ranges include strategic, theater and tactical. Each entails unique requirements for intercept, and a defensive system capable of intercepting one missile type frequently cannot intercept other ...
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Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles). The concept was announced on March 23, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan,Federation of American ScientistsMissile Defense Milestones Accessed March 10, 2007. a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a "suicide pact". Reagan called upon American scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the US Department of Defense to oversee development. A wide array of advanced weapon concepts, including lasers, Duarte, F. J. (Ed.), ''Proceedings of the International Conference on Lasers '87'' (STS, McLean, Va, 1988). particl ...
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Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interceptor Subsystem
The Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interceptor Subsystem, or ERIS, program, was a component of the United States' Strategic Defense Initiative during the Cold War. The ERIS system was named after Eris, Greek goddess of strife. ERIS was a kinetic kill system, launched from a ground-based system, and impacting directly to destroy an incoming Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) before the targeted ICBM re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. Background The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union permitted each nation to have two ABM sites, each limited to 100 missiles, for a total of 200 ABMs per nation. A 1976 Protocol added to the ABM treaty further limited each nation to a single, 100 missile site. Development In 1985, Lockheed Corporation was awarded a contract to develop an ABM system - the ERIS - that was compliant with the ABM Treaty. ERIS was to be a high altitude component of SDI that would operate in outer space. It would intercep ...
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Infrared Homing
Infrared homing is a passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it seamlessly. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers" since infrared is radiated strongly by hot bodies. Many objects such as people, vehicle engines and aircraft generate and emit heat and so are especially visible in the infrared wavelengths of light compared to objects in the background. Infrared seekers are passive devices, which, unlike radar, provide no indication that they are tracking a target. That makes them suitable for sneak attacks during visual encounters or over longer ranges when they are used with a forward looking infrared or similar cuing system. Heat-seekers are extremely effective: 90% of all United States air combat losses over the past 25 years have been caused by infrared-homing missiles. They are, however, subject to a number of simple countermeasures, most notably by dropping flare ...
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Hughes Aircraft
The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other products, the Hughes H-4 Hercules ''Spruce Goose'' aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the ''Galileo'' spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile. Hughes Aircraft was founded to construct Hughes' H-1 Racer world speed record aircraft, and it later modified aircraft for his transcontinental and global circumnavigation speed record flights. The company relocated to Culver City, California, in 1940 and began manufacturing aircraft parts as a subcontractor. Hughes attempted to mold it into a major military aircraft manufacturer during World War II; however, its initial military projects ended in failure, with millions of dollars in U.S. government funds expended but only three aircraft actually built, resulting in a highly pub ...
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Aerojet
Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp. In 2013, Aerojet was merged by GenCorp with the former Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to form Aerojet Rocketdyne. History Aerojet developed from a 1936 meeting hosted by Theodore von Kármán at his home. Joining von Kármán, who was at the time director of Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, were a number of Caltech professors and students, including rocket scientist and astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky and explosives expert Jack Parsons, all of whom were interested in the topic of spaceflight. The group continued to occasionally meet, but its activities were limited to discussions rather than experimentation. Their first design was tested on August 16, 1941, consisting of a small cylindrical so ...
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McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produced well-known commercial and military aircraft, such as the DC-10 airliner, the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter, the MD-80 airliner, and the F/A-18 Hornet multirole fighter. The corporation's headquarters were at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, near St. Louis, Missouri; its subsidiary, McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Company (MDTSC), was based elsewhere in St. Louis County, Missouri. At its peak in mid-1990, McDonnell Douglas employed 132,500 people. By the end of 1992, employment had dropped to approximately 87,400. History Background The company was formed from the firms of James Smith McDonnell and Donald Wills Douglas in 1967. Both men were of Scottish ancestry, were graduates of the Massachusetts Insti ...
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Terminal High Altitude Area Defense
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), formerly Theater High Altitude Area Defense, is an American anti-ballistic missile defense system designed to shoot down short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase (descent or reentry) by intercepting with a hit-to-kill approach. THAAD was developed after the experience of Iraq's Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War in 1991. The THAAD interceptor carries no warhead, instead relying on its kinetic energy of impact to destroy the incoming missile. Originally a United States Army program, THAAD has come under the umbrella of the Missile Defense Agency. The Navy has a similar program, the sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, which also has a land component ("Aegis Ashore"). THAAD was originally scheduled for deployment in 2012, but initial deployment took place in May 2008. THAAD has been deployed in the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Romania, and South Korea. On 17 January 2 ...
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