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Illeginni Island
Illeginni ( Marshallese: , ) is an island in the Kwajalein Atoll, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Illeginni is located approximately directly south of Roi-Namur Island, the northernmost part in the atoll, and to the northwest of Kwajalein, the largest island and southernmost part of the atoll. The island runs roughly west-northwest to east-southeast. It is approximately long and averages about across. The northwestern end is a narrow finger that extends into several sandbars, while the southeastern end has a hook-shaped harbor on the north side. Illeginni was the site of a Sprint missile launcher during the 1960s, part of the Nike-X anti-ballistic missile program. Sprint was a very short range system, and relied on a number of bases being spread around the area to be defended, one of these containing the control systems and master radar. Meck Island was the main base in the test system, while Illeginni was a model of the distributed launch sites. As Nike-X ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshallese Language
Marshallese ( or ), also known as Ebon, is a Micronesian language spoken in the Marshall Islands. The language of the Marshallese people, it is spoken by nearly all of the country's population of 59,000, making it the principal language. There are also roughly 27,000 Marshallese citizens residing in the United States, nearly all of whom speak Marshallese, as well as residents in other countries such as Nauru and Kiribati. There are two major dialects, the western Ralik Chain, Rālik and the eastern Ratak Chain, Ratak. Classification Marshallese, a Micronesian languages, Micronesian language, is a member of the Eastern Oceanic languages, Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian languages. The closest linguistic relatives of Marshallese are the other Micronesian languages, including Gilbertese language, Gilbertese, Nauruan language, Nauruan, Pohnpeian language, Pohnpeian, Mokilese language, Mokilese, Chuukese language, Chuukese, Carolinian people, Refaluwasch, and Kosraean language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Island
An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been part of a continent. Oceanic islands can be formed from volcano, volcanic activity, grow into atolls from coral reefs, and form from sediment along shorelines, creating barrier islands. River islands can also form from sediment and debris in rivers. Artificial islands are those made by humans, including small rocky outcroppings built out of lagoons and large-scale land reclamation projects used for development. Islands are host to diverse plant and animal life. Oceanic islands have the sea as a natural barrier to the introduction of new species, causing the species that do reach the island to evolve in isolation. Continental islands share animal and plant life with the continent they split from. Depending on how long ago the continental is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kwajalein Atoll
Kwajalein Atoll (; Marshallese language, Marshallese: ) is part of the Marshall Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English-speaking residents (about 1,000 mostly U.S. civilian personnel) often use the shortened name, Kwaj . The total land area of the atoll amounts to just over . It lies in the Ralik, Ralik Chain, southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. The US Navy has hosted a naval base on Kwajalein Island since World War II. It was the final resting place of the German cruiser ''German cruiser Prinz Eugen, Prinz Eugen'' after it survived the Operation Crossroads nuclear test in 1946. In the late 1950s, the US Army took over the base as part of their Nike Zeus anti-ballistic missile efforts, and since then the atoll has been widely used for missile tests of all sorts. Today it is part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, with various radars, tracking camera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Republic Of The Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The territory consists of 29 coral atolls and five main islands as well as 1,220 other very small ones, divided across two island chains: Ratak in the east and Ralik in the west. 97.87% of its territory is water, the largest proportion of water to land of any sovereign state. The country shares maritime boundaries with Wake Island to the north, Kiribati to the southeast, Nauru to the south, and the Federated States of Micronesia to the west. The capital and largest city is Majuro, home to approximately half of the country's population. The Marshall Islands are one of only four atoll based nations in the entire world. Austronesian settlers reached the Marshall Islands as early as the 2nd millennium BC and introduced Southeast Asian crops, including coconuts, gian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sprint Missile
The Sprint was a two-stage, solid-fuel anti-ballistic missile (ABM), armed with a W66 enhanced-radiation thermonuclear warhead used by the United States Army during 1975–76. It was designed to intercept incoming reentry vehicles (RV) after they had descended below an altitude of about , where the thickening air stripped away any decoys or radar reflectors and exposed the RV to observation by radar. As the RV would be traveling at about , Sprint needed to have phenomenal performance to achieve an interception in the few seconds before the RV reached its target. Sprint accelerated at 100 ''g'', reaching a speed of in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to , requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat. The high temperature caused a plasma to form around the missile, requiring extremely powerful radio signals to reach it for guidance. The missile glowed bright white as it flew. Sprint was the centerpiece of the Nike-X ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nike-X
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 the Nike-X program was canceled and replaced by a much lighter defense system known as Sentinel program, Sentinel. The Nike-X system was developed in response to limitations of the earlier LIM-49 Nike Zeus, 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 the warheads until they were too close to attack, making a single-warhead attack highly likely t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-ballistic Missile
An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to Missile defense, destroy in-flight ballistic missiles. They achieve this explosively (chemical or nuclear), or via hit-to-kill Kinetic projectile, kinetic vehicles, which may also have self-maneuvering. Tactical systems are widely deployed to counter Short-range ballistic missile, short and Intermediate-range ballistic missile, intermediate-range ballistic missiles that carry conventional weapon, conventional warheads. Strategic systems, deployed by the United States, Russia, and Israel, are capable of intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles, typically used to carry Strategic nuclear weapon, strategic nuclear warheads. During the Cold War, the 1972 ABM Treaty limited the nuclear arms race; excessive ICBM production would have been favoured to overwhelm ABM systems. Of the modern strategic ABM systems, only Russia's are themselves armed with nuclear warheads. Current counter-ICBM systems There are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meck Island
Meck Island (, ) is part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Ralik Chain in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. Meck is part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, and a launch site for anti-ballistic missiles and launch vehicles is based there. It was originally developed in support of the Sentinel program of the 1960s, and hosted a radar site and launchers for Sprint and Spartan missiles. It has been used for a variety of tests since then, including the Safeguard program, Homing Overlay Experiment, Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) is the Raytheon-manufactured interceptor component with subcontractor Aerojet of the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), part of the larger National Missile Defense system. The EKV is boosted to an i ..., THAAD and others. References Kwajalein Atoll Islands of the Marshall Islands {{Marshalls-geo-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Safeguard Program
The Safeguard Program was a U.S. Army anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system designed to protect the U.S. Air Force's Minuteman ICBM silos from attack, thus preserving the US's nuclear deterrent fleet. It was intended primarily to protect against the very small Chinese ICBM fleet, limited Soviet attacks and various other limited-launch scenarios. A full-scale attack by the Soviets would easily overwhelm it. It was designed to allow gradual upgrades to provide similar lightweight coverage over the entire United States over time. Safeguard was the ultimate development of an ever-changing series of designs produced by Bell Labs that started in the 1950s with the LIM-49 Nike Zeus. By 1960 it was clear that Zeus offered almost no protection against a sophisticated attack using decoys. A new design emerged, Nike-X, with the ability to defend against attacks with hundreds of warheads and thousands of decoys, but the cost of the system was enormous. Looking for alternatives, the Senti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LIM-49 Spartan
The LIM-49 Spartan was a United States Army anti-ballistic missile, designed to intercept attacking nuclear warheads from intercontinental ballistic missiles at long range and while still outside the atmosphere. For actual deployment, a five-megaton thermonuclear warhead was planned to destroy the incoming ICBM warheads. It was part of the Safeguard Program. The Spartan was the latest and, as it turned out, final development in a long series of missile designs from the team of Bell Laboratories and Douglas Aircraft Company that started in the 1940s with the Nike. Spartan was developed directly from the preceding LIM-49 Nike Zeus, retaining the same tri-service identifier, but growing larger and longer ranged, from the Zeus' to approximately . The Spartan was superseded by the Nike-X project, later becoming the Sentinel Program. This was eventually cancelled and replaced with the much smaller Safeguard Program. Spartans were deployed as part of the Safeguard system from Octobe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site
The Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, commonly referred to as the Reagan Test Site (formerly Kwajalein Missile Range), is a missile test range in Marshall Islands (Pacific Ocean). It covers about and includes rocket launch sites at the Kwajalein Atoll (on multiple islands), Wake Island, and Aur Atoll. It primarily functions as a test facility for U.S. missile defense and space research programs. The Reagan Test Site is under the command of the US Army Kwajalein Atoll, or USAKA (pronounced ). Purpose and facilities The facility is part of the Defense Major Range and Test Facility Base. They provide range instrumentation, missile launch facilities, mission control center, range safety, meteorological support, and support space operations. , the facility's budget was US$182 million. The site hosts a suite of unique instrumentation, located on eight islands throughout the Kwajalein Atoll. This instrumentation includes a comprehensive suite of precision metri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
