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White Sands Missile Range
| Country: | USA |
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White Sands Missile Range is the largest overland missile testing range in the Western Hemisphere, and the largest military installation in the U.S. At present, the range is used by the Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, and other government agencies, as well as universities, private industries, and foreign militaries. Encompassing approximately 2.2 million acres, White Sands is located in the Tularosa and Joranda del Muerto Basins of south-central New Mexico.
In 1944, the Army surveyed the continental U.S. in search of an appropriate location for missile testing. Certain characteristics were needed: clear weather; uninhabited terrain over which test firings could be conducted without threatening civilian populations; and access to roads, railroads, and power facilities. The Tularosa Basin and Joranda del Muerto Basins, situated in a semi-arid desert region with an 85 percent chance of sunshine, met almost all of the Army’s requirements.
On July 9, 1945, the Army established White Sands Proving Ground. Construction of missile firing facilities began immediately. On July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, located on the northern tip of White Sands Proving Ground. It was the beginning of the nuclear age, in which White Sands would play a major role. Intensive V-2 rocket research and development took place throughout the late 1940s under the auspices of Dr. Wernher von Braun and his German V-2 team. In 1955, the first U.S.-developed ballistic missile with an internal guidance system, known as Redstone, was launched over New Mexico.
In 1958, as the arms race was beginning to heat up, White Sands Proving Ground was renamed White Sands Missile Range. A number of landmark missile defense tests took place during the next few years. In January 1960, a HAWK interceptor missile shot down an Honest John target missile in the world’s first supersonic missile kill. That August, a Nike Hercules missile destroyed another Nike Hercules at an altitude of 11 miles. A HAWK shot down a Corporal ballistic missile in January 1961 and, the following December, a Nike Zeus intercepted a Nike Hercules.
During the 1970s, a test site for advanced laser weapons systems was established at the range, known as the White Sands Missile Range High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF), an $800 million investment. Among those lasers tested at HELSTF were the Navy’s Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL), the Air Force’s Excimer Raman-Shifted Laser Device (EMRLD), and the Army’s Pulsed Laser Vulnerability Test System (PLVTS), and the U.S.-Israeli Tactical High-Energy Laser (THEL).
During the 1980s and 1990s, White Sands Missile Range served as the main test facility for the highly successful Patriot missile system, including recent tests of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors. In addition, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, the Medium Extended Area Defense System (MEADS), and the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser (MTHEL) were all successfully tested at White Sands. Such tests continue to this day.
At present, there is a push in Congress to expand the role of White Sands Missile Range to include testing of longer-range anti-ballistic missile systems. Critics argue that such tests would pose dangers to commercial airlines, ground traffic, and the environment. Yet proponents of longer-range overland testing maintain that the need to replicate real-life threats (i.e. an actual ballistic missile attack on the continental U.S.) overrides such concerns.
Sources
GlobalSecurity.org.
Navrot, Miguel. “New Missile Tests Over N.M.?” Albuquerque Journal, 30 June 2004, p. A1.
White Sands Missile Range.
NYT Profiles THEL System
The New York Times recently profiled the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), a joint U.S.-Israeli development program that was canceled in September 2005. The project was conceived in the mid-1990s when Hezbollah guerrillas began firing Katyusha rockets at northern Israel. The contract was approved by the U.S. and Israel in April 1996, and work began at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The prototype THEL was roughly the size of six city buses, and included a chemical laser, fuel tanks, a rotating mirror, radar, and a command center. In 2000, the laser successfully destroyed an armed Katyusha in a test at White Sands, and soon thereafter shot down two dozen more. Despite these successes, the system was judged “too costly, feeble, and unwieldy for battlefield use,” according to the Times. The article quotes Yiftah S. Shapir, a military analyst at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, who said that one Hezbollah guerrilla with a rocket launcher could fire 40 Katyushas in less than a minute, meaning that Israel would have had to deploy “a few dozen of these systems” at the Lebanese border. Firing THEL just once would have cost roughly $3,000, and if properly deployed the system would have likely run into the billions of dollars. David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, concurred with Shapir’s analysis. “The program was terminated because of its prohibitive costs,” he said.
All the same, Israel now has no defense against Katyusha rockets, and is paying the price in many ways.
» More stories on: Israel, Terrorism
» Missile system details for: Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL), White Sands Missile Range
THAAD Test Successful, Destroys Target Missile
MDA today announced that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system successfully destroyed a non-separating Hera target missile over White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The pre-dawn test was the third of five tests planned at White Sands Missile Range to determine the effectiveness of the THAAD system.
While the previous two THAAD flight tests, also conducted at White Sands Missile Range, were focused on interceptor fly-out and performance, the remaining flight test program is providing verification of the integrated THAAD element at increasingly difficult levels. Further testing is planned for both White Sands and in the Pacific. In all, the nine-year program to develop the defense system has cost about $4 billion.
“This was phenomenal,” said U.S. Army Col. Charles Driessnack, the project manager for the Missile Defense Agency’s THAAD program. “It performed as expected.” This specific test demonstrated THAAD’s ability to “completely destroy that warhead so that no chemical or nuclear residue would contaminate areas” below the explosion, Driessnack said.
The target was a Hera missile that closely mimicked the characteristics of a SCUD missile. The Hera target carried a canister of inert material to simulate chemical or biological elements such as could be mounted on an enemy missile, Driessnack said. The target missile rose roughly 200 miles above the Earth before beginning the final stage descent toward land.
Of particular interest are Driessnack’s comments that this test indicates THAAD could be ready for emergency deployment “as soon as a year from now.” Driessnack said the system could be used “to protect our East and West coasts” from missile attack, and will be readily deployable to any region, including as part of homeland defense protection.
THAAD is designed to destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles in their terminal flight phase, just seconds before they hit their intended targets. MDA plans to deploy two THAAD units, each consisting of 24 missiles, the first in 2009 and the second by December 2011, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), White Sands Missile Range
Patriot GEM Test Successful, Two Ballistic Missile Targets Destroyed
Patriot Guidance Enhanced Missiles (GEM) successfully destroyed two ballistic missile targets during a recent test at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Two GEMs were ripple-fired at an incoming Patriot-as-a-Target, an older Patriot missile modified to represent a short-range ballistic missile target. As the intercept occurred, the Patriot Configuration-3 radar detected, tracked, and engaged a second target. A third GEM intercepted the second Patriot-as-a-Target, thus successfully completing the test’s objectives. According to prime contractor Raytheon, this was the first of four flight tests that will use the newly developed post deployment build-6 (PDB-6) software. PDB-6 was the result of “lessons learned” from Operation Iraqi Freedom when Patriot units destroyed all nine Iraqi missiles launched at the invasion force, but also mistakenly shot down two coalition planes. The PDB-6 upgrade is intended to allow the Patriot system to better discriminate between ballistic missiles, aircraft, cruise missiles, and other battlefield targets.
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2), White Sands Missile Range
THAAD Interceptor Undergoes Flight Test
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system today underwent a successful developmental flight test, reports Lockheed Martin, which produced the missile. The test, which took place at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, is the first for several years, since the THAAD program was restarted after being suspended for several years.
No intercept was attempted in the test, but the goals included such things as: evaluating how the missile exited the canister, booster and kill vehicle separation, kill vehicle control, and operation of the divert and attitude control system.
The next flight test will launch a missile with all elements of the integrated weapon system engaged and operating; the next four THAAD tests will also be conducted at White Sands, after which the tests will move to the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii where additional space allows the THAAD interceptors to fly increasingly longer and more complex missions.
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), White Sands Missile Range
PAC-3 Test Unsuccessful
A recent test of the Army’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile defense system against a short-range ballistic missile target was unsuccessful. The test took place on November 11 at White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico. The PAC-3 has now had seventeen successful intercept tests and three unsuccessful intercepts.
» More stories on: Testing - American
» Missile system details for: Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3), White Sands Missile Range
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