Missiles and Rockets

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JANUARY 6, 1964

THE WEEKLY OF SPACE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

Missiles and rockets, February 17, 1964

The Missile/ Space Week

Athena Test Program Halted

Following failure of the first Athena test vehicle, the Air Force has ordered a halt to the program

until the difficulties are isolated and corrected.

The 50-ft., 15,750-lb. Athena strayed off-course in an overland firing from Green River, Utah, to

White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The vehicle landed some 50-75 miles off course, impacting 20

miles south- east of Durango, Colo.

Booster for the Air Force's ABRES (Advanced Ballistic Reentry Systems) program, Athena is a four

stage missile. In this test it carried a scaled version of the Mark 6 re-entry vehicle.

Failure appeared to be in the guidance package which, following second stage ignition, had falsely

oriented the missile toward White Sands. Investigations are being con ducted, however, to

determine precisely what went wrong.

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Shots of the Week

First shot of an Athena reentry vehicle in the Air Force's Advanced Ballistic Reentry Systems
(ABRES)

program failed when the payload came to Earth 50-75 mi. short of the White Sands Missile Range,

N.M., target (see p. 10).

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Arkansas; Athena Checkout — Range Firing Facility — Green River, Utah; Communication System

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Missiles and rockets, February 24, 1964

Junction Box Foiled Athena

The first Athena missile, which was thrown 20 degrees off course after firing at Green River, Utah,

Feb. 11 and impacted 200 miles from its target area, was victimized by short circuit in a second-

stage junction box, Air Force sources indicated last week. They said there was no connection

between the malfunction and the Athena's guidance system or propulsion units.

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Missiles and rockets, March 2, 1964

Project GLOW To Aid ABRES Program

New York — Flight test activity under Project GLOW, a jointly sponsored Advanced Research
Projects

Agency (ARPA) and Army research program to gather infrared, ultraviolet, and visible spectra

signatures on reentry vehicles, is expected to begin in August at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

The program, expected to run for 3-4 years, will be used extensively to evaluate various re-entry

bodies associated with the Air Force's Advanced Ballistic Re-Entry System (ABRES) probably
boosted

by the service's new low-cost and lightweight Athena launch vehicles (M/R, July 8, p. 18).

Actually, firings from the new Green River, Utah, launch site to the WSMR impact area with the
four-

stage solid-fuel Athena probably will carry identical but sub-scale models of ABRES nose cones
(M/R,

Sept. 2, p. 11). One of the objectives of the ABRES flight program, which has already gotten under

way at Pacific Missile Range, using Atlas ICBM's, has been development of scaling laws which
would allow smaller payloads to be used with Athena-type vehicles at WSMR.

In addition to ABRES, Project GLOW is expected to evaluate many other Army and ARPA re-entry

vehicle programs. ARPA, for example, last spring disclosed that it was shifting its Trailblazer II
target

vehicle launches to WSMR (M/R, May 6, p. 16).

The optical re-entry instrumentation system for Project GLOW is described by project sources as
the

most accurate pedestal-mounted pointing system in existence. A U.S. Army Missile Command

contract, thought to be worth more than $1 million, was awarded recently to the Perkin-Elmer

Corp., Norwalk, Conn. Under the contract, Perkin-Elmer will supply two identical systems, the first

expected to be on site by August. GLOW, which will be a passive system with no associated
hardware

carried aboard the test vehicle, will operate from two sites to provide different aspects for
signature

data collection and also to aid data correlation. Information obtained in the program is expected
to

feed both the development of advanced ground-based detection and discrimination systems and

sensors, and improvement of nose cone and decoy re-entry designs.

The optical instrumentation system will have three major functions, according to Perkin-Elmer:

acquisition and tracking; radiance information gathering and real-time storage; and data
correlation

and reduction.

Instrumentation includes radiometers, spectrophotometers, and spectrography. In addition, the

system is proposed to include an auto-tracker operating in the IR and visible spectrum, a TV

camera

and monitor for visual observation of target and booster separation during re-entry, and a
boresight

camera. An ROTI camera, also made by the Connecticut firm, will also be included in the system to
record re-entry.

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Missiles and rockets, March 30, 1964

Circle No. 31 on Subscriber Service Card

63 Of course we manufacture computers, but our business is defense data s ystems.

We actually manufacture computers and related peripheral equipment. Yet the computer— the

best computer— doesn't of itself constitute a defense data system. Our interest in defense
systems

extends far beyond computers and related hardware. Our job begins at the beginning and ends
only

at the end . . . when the whole system — not just our computer— is doing precisely what it's

designed to do.

Many of our people work exclusively with the latest developments in radar, missiles, weapons,

displays, communications, etc. Everything, in fact, that is part of an information processing system.

Uniting all elements of the system is important. Advance programming techniques allow for

flexibility, adapta-

UNIVAC DIVISION OF SPERRY RAND CORPORATION

bility, and expandability. That's why, since 1946, people responsible for national defense have
come

to UN1VAC for solutions to data systems problems.

This problem-oriented philosophy is largely responsible for such significant UNIVAC-developed

command and space systems as the NTDS (Naval Tactical Data System), the Airborne ASW
Computer

System, the ATHENA Guidance Computer, the Nike Zeus Target Intercept Computer System,

AMRfAtlantic Missile Range RealTime DataHandling Systems), and many more. While it's true we

design and produce computers, where defense is concerned, our business spans entire systems.

Data systems created to answer specific advance defense problems.

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Missiles and rockets, March 30, 1964

65 TYPICAL OF ABRES program is the study of radar cross-section characteristics, and ways to
reduce

them. Scale model of a re-entry vehicle is shown in Douglas Aircraft Co.'s anechoic chamber to

determine reflective radar energy from test specimen. Such programs are aimed at better

penetration aids for ICBM's.

McNamara has already expressed interest in the Polaris B3. This missile would have, in addition to

other improvements, a diameter increased from 54 to 56-57 in., principally by a reduction in

thickness of the liner in the missile tube (M/R, Feb. 24, p. 16; M/R, Jan. 13, p. 18).

The Air Force has also conducted studies which reveal that larger-diameter missiles could be

retrofitted into Minuteman silos. These missiles, which would rely on the technology of the Titan
III

120-in. solids, would increase the pay-load capability of the Advanced Minuteman "by at least four

times."

"There is not much incentive to do this now," a DDR&E official says, "and the major incentive
would

be related to the Soviet's active defense."

Meanwhile, two important product improvement decisions have already been made with regard
to

the Minuteman II.

— Improvements will be made in the guidance and control system to significantly improve the
initial

system's accuracy. This program will be carried out over the next several years.

— An improved re-entry vehicle enabling the Minuteman to penetrate any missiles and rockets,

March 30, 1964

65
forseeable defense will be introduced into the program within several years. The re-entry vehicle
is

the Mark XII under development by Avco.

With the FY '66 budget, the Minuteman retrofit program will begin and continue over the next five

years. Minuteman II missiles will be back-fitted into the first five wings, and the entire Minuteman

system will be modernized.

Another road, more accuracy — Accuracy of both Minuteman and Polaris has been improving

steadily. In fact, one DDR&E official terms the accuracy improvements "phenomenal."

Even further improvements are possible in the present guidance and control systems without

developing an entire new system.

Future guidance schemes are under consideration, however, and development of components is

being funded.

These developments fall into four major areas:

— Inertial guidance during boost;

— Inertial all the way;

— Inertial and terminal guidance; and,

— Inertial and radio vernier.

A great deal of interest and emphasis is being placed on the inertial with terminal correction

capability. The main problem with the maneuvering re-entry vehicle, however, is that the guidance

components must be able to withstand the high acceleration forces encountered in coming back

into the atmosphere. Terminal schemes will have to wait until the possibilities of improving
internal

systems in present systems have been exhausted.

Basically, the search for higher accuracy is the technical implementation of Secretary McNamara's

"damage-limiting" strategy. The major goal is dual: to gain a higher confidence of destroying
military

targets of a particular hardness and, at the same time, to reduce the yield of the warhead so as

to minimize collateral damage.

Getting through — One of the biggest missile R&D programs is the Advanced Ballistic Re-entry

Systems (ABRES) program to insure that ballistic missiles will be able to penetrate whatever

defensive systems they encounter. Development of re-entry vehicles for operational systems docs

not fall under this program, but rather is funded under the specific system.

The ABRES program is divided into three major areas:

— Advanced Re-entry Technology;

— Range, instrumentation and data processing; and

— Test vehicles and launch support.

A joint Air Force-Navy project office controls ABRES and cooperates to the maximum extent with

the Army and ARPA. The high expense of the program is made more palatable by the fact that
results

of the tests feed directly into both the Nike-X and Defender programs as much as into the strategic

missile areas.

A great deal of progress has been made during the past three years, particularly in improving

knowledge of the physical effects resulting from a warhead re-entering the atmosphere and of the

methods with which to simulate these effects. In fact, DDR&E officials note that penetration-aid

packages are becoming available now — an extremely short gestation period for a program of

this magnitude.

A national program, ABRES depends to a large degree on system analysis in which different

penetration systems are continuously analyzed and wargamed against various kinds of defenses.

Use is also made of foreign technology as an indication of possible approaches in the next 10-15

years.

Possible penetration techniques under development include reducing the vehicle's cross section so

that it becomes "invisible" to the enemy's sensors whether they be radar, infrared or optical.

The next area of interest is the active devices — such as chaff or electronic countermeasures
packages — which obscure the re-entry vehicle. Decoys which have the same reflective charac-

teristics as the re-entry vehicle can also be used. However, once the re-entry vehicle penetrates
the

atmosphere these decoys are quickly separated from the warhead, thus relieving the
discrimination

problem.

Two final areas of interest are:

1) hardening of warheads so that they can withst and the defensive weapon effects and

2) using multiple warheads to saturate the defenses so that the enemy cannot react fast enough
to

destroy all the re-entry vehicles.

Terminal guidance would increase penetrability considerably by increasing the threat tube — the

theoretical volume within which a re-entry vehicle must approach in order to destroy a target —

by targeting the re-entry body to fall short of the target, and then through a terminal maneuver

pulling it up and into the target. This is a further dividend — quite apart from increased accuracy

— accruing from maneuvering re-entry bodies.

One of the major programs aimed at bettering knowledge of re-entry phenomena and applying
this

knowledge to improved re-entry vehicles is the Athena program being conducted by the Air Force

from Green River, Utah. The program, involving more than 70 flight vehicles, started last month,
but

immediately ran into trouble when the first vehicle was brought down within 20 miles of Durango,

Colo. (M/R, Feb. 17, p. 10).

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Fired into White Sands Missile

66

Missiles and rockets, March 30, 1964

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Circle No. 49 on Subscriber Service Card

Range at a controlled re-entry velocity, angle and altitude, the package can be monitored by the

range's ground-based and airborne instrumentation. One of the purposes of the Athena program
is

to develop scaling laws for ICBM re-entry vehicles which will allow data from tests of models to be

extrapolated to the full-scale vehicle without actually having to build and flight-test the bigger

model.

Pre-launch survivability plus the ability to ride out a missile attack and still retaliate is a continuing

effort under the various ballistic missile programs.

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