Reply #60: They are using an existing rocket. Just new warhead and guidance system. [View All]

[NutmegYankee]

As a first of its kind, the shootdown scenario draws on a wide range of scientific and military technologies - from ships and radar sites in the Pacific to high-powered telescopes in Hawaii and elsewhere, to a specially fitted Air Force plane and a Navy ship that snoops on missile tests.

To kick off the planning, the government assembled a high-security team of about 200 people - Navy scientists and missile defense experts, plus representatives of defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, as well as scientists from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Lockheed is the manufacturer of the Aegis system and Raytheon makes the SM-3 missile.

The Lake Erie, a cruiser that has participated in a dozen mostly successful tests to intercept a mock enemy missile in flight over the past six years, would take the first shot at the satellite at a distance of about 150 miles, just beyond the reach of Earth's atmosphere.

The SM-3 missile aboard the Lake Erie is equipped with a heat-seeking sensor that has been modified in order to enable it to zero in on the satellite, whose heat "signature" is smaller than that of a ballistic missile in flight.

The SM-3 costs $9.5 million, not counting its one-of-a-kind modifications. It is designed to destroy its target not by detonating an explosive nearby but by slamming directly into the satellite at high speed.


http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0208/021808ap1.htm