Patriot Missile

Patriot is a long-range, all-altitude, all-weather surface-to-air missile designed to replace the Nike Hercules and Improved Hawk, and the entire Patriot system is the U.S. Army's most advanced air defense system. It is the only operational air defense system that can detect, target, and shoot down attacking missiles or incoming aircraft. The missile here is actually a SAM-D, or Surface-to-Air Missile - Development, the name used until 1976, when it was renamed Patriot in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial. Patriot is launched from a canister, powered by a single solid-fueled rocket motor, and armed with a high-explosive blast-fragmentation warhead. It is inertially guided using Track-Via-Missile guidance, meaning target tracking information is received by the missile rather than directly by the ground radar, and the missile then transmits it to the ground control station. Because the missile is always nearer to the target than the ground radar, this method improves accuracy and helps distinguish decoys from the real threat. Patriot planning originated in October 1964 as a defense against high performance aircraft. Development was slowed by the requirement that SAM-D use Track-Via-Missile guidance, and full-scale development did not begin until January 1976, after the guidance system had been demonstrated in tests in 1975. Testing began at White Sands Missile Range in 1970, and since then innumerable SAM-D and Patriot missiles have been tested there. In the early 1990s, Patriot was upgraded to intercept tactical ballistic missiles and became known as PAC-3 Patriot. Because the missile is delivered in a canister ready for launching, Army soldiers rarely see the actual missile inside.

White Sands, New Mexico · United States