Word: interceptor
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Five minutes into its launch, the California rocket will release its mock warhead. The accompanying balloon will quickly inflate to its 6-ft.-plus diameter. Traveling less than a mile away from the mock warhead, the balloon is supposed to lure the interceptor away from its intended target. The warhead and the balloon, along with the container in which they rode into space, will reach a top speed of 14,700 m.p.h. and a peak altitude nearly 1,000 miles above the earth...
...Greenland and Massachusetts would get the alarm. Updates on the target's path will pour into the U.S. Space Command's outpost at Cheyenne Mountain, Colo. Computers there will assemble a "weapons task plan" based on the incoming weapon's trajectory and any decoys trying to fool the U.S. interceptor. Within minutes, the first draft of this electronic map will be zapped nearly 6,000 miles to Kwajalein and into the interceptor's electronic brain...
...trouble is that in this week's test the interceptor won't rely solely on satellites and early-warning radars to trace its target. It will be looking for a target traveling a familiar path--the same California-to-Kwajalein arc used in the previous two tests. And this relatively short distance--as well as safety concerns--means the mock warhead won't be traveling as fast as a genuinely hostile one. This "single end-game geometry," said an independent review panel headed by retired General Larry Welch last fall, "raises questions about the ability of the flight-test program...
...Friday's test, the interceptor will have other advantages that the final product will not possess. The mock warhead, in fact, will basically shout, "Here I am!" to those trying to shoot it down. That's because it will carry a global-positioning-system transmitter, the same satellite technology that keeps motorists from getting lost. Although Pentagon documents say GPS data will help guide the interceptor during test flights, program officials say the data will be used only if other methods fail. Any use of GPS data, says Coyle, "does not suitably stress the system in a realistic enough manner...
...minutes following the target's launch, the interceptor will receive updated maps as the mock warhead soars over the ocean. Then, like a thirsty traveler about to cross a desert, the interceptor will take a final gulp of data on its nemesis' whereabouts and expected route just before blasting off some 20 minutes after the California launch...