An all-aspect

air-to-air missile An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying another aircraft (including unmanned aircraft such as cruise missiles). AAMs are typically powered by one or more rocket motors, usually solid-fuel roc ...

can track a target no matter which way the target faces relative to the missile. In other words, an all-aspect missile can be launched against a target not only in a

tail-chase engagement A tail-chase engagement (or rear-aspect engagement) is one where a surface-to-air missile system or jet aircraft engages another aircraft while the target aircraft is flying away from the attacker. This makes engagement with cannons or infrared h ...

, but also in a

head-on engagement In military aviation, a head-on engagement is one where a surface-to-air missile system or jet aircraft engages another aircraft while the target aircraft is flying towards the attacker. This makes engagement with infrared homing missiles more di ...

, in a side-on engagement, from above, from below, etc. This is opposed to older

infrared homing Infrared homing is a Missile guidance#Passive homing, 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 "he ...

rear aspect missiles which were only able to track the hot engine exhaust of an aircraft if the aircraft's engine exhaust was pointing towards the missile seeker, and thus were only successfully used in tail-chase engagements. Examples include the US

AIM-9 Sidewinder The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a short-range air-to-air missile. Entering service with the United States Navy in 1956 and the Air Force in 1964, the AIM-9 is one of the oldest, cheapest, and most successful air-to-air missiles. Its latest variants rema ...

(AIM-9L and later), the Russian

Vympel R-73 The Vympel R-73 (NATO reporting name AA-11 ''Archer'') is a short-range IR-homing air-to-air missile developed by Vympel NPO that entered service in 1984. Development The R-73 was developed to replace the earlier R-60 (AA-8 'Aphid') weapon fo ...

and the Israeli

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. () is an Israeli Defense contractor, defense technology company. It was founded as Israel's National R&D Defense Laboratory for the development of weapons and military technology within the Ministry of Defens ...

Python 5 The Rafael Python (stylized all uppercase; ''פיתון'') is a family of air-to-air missiles (AAMs) built by the Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, formerly RAFAEL Armament Development Authority. Originally starting wi ...

air-air/ground-air missile.

References

Missile guidance {{missile-stub