MDA Interactive Timeline 1944 V-2 missile, launch images, German launch images World War II signaled the dawn of the missile age with the German V-2, the world’s first ballistic missile. Although it was relatively inaccurate and carried a limited payload to a range of about 200 miles, it traveled at supersonic speed and exploded without warning. Over 1,000 of the deadly weapons fell on Great Britain and hit targets in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. There was no defense against them, other than interdicting their launch sites. 1945 British Missile Defense imagery, fire storms in London residential neighborhoods When the war ended, some believed Germany was within 2 years of developing a 15,000-mile range intercontinental ballistic missile. At that time, the most effective active defense against V-2 missiles was based on an untried British plan of using radar tracking and massive anti-aircraft artillery barrages. One estimate theorized 12,000 rounds would be needed to down a single V-2, and only 3 to 10 percent of attacking missiles might be destroyed. In the United States, an Army Air Forces Scientific Advisory Group study that looked toward the future, called “Toward New Horizons,” believed an active missile defense solution was possible using surface-to-air missiles among other missile defense possibilities. 1946 General Joseph W. Stilwell portrait, archival global rendering or animation In January 1946, a War Department Equipment Board headed by General Joseph W. Stilwell observed that “intercontinental missiles capable of carrying atomic explosives over 3,000 miles are probable within the predictable future.” The Board recommended developing an anti-aircraft missile that could destroy both high-performance aircraft and V-2 type ballistic missiles. 1946 Thumper or Wizard imagery launch footage, schematics In March 1946, the U.S. Army Air Forces initiated two study programs, Projects Thumper and Wizard, to design an anti-ballistic missile, or ABM, operating at altitudes up to 500,000 feet against V-2 type missiles traveling between 4,000 and 5,000 miles per hour. Later, both programs broadened to include all supersonic targets that flew above 60,000 feet. 1947 Early USAF or USAAF logo The U.S. Army Air Forces, which became the Air Force in 1947, recognized developing an ABM system could take up to 10 years and was so costly that it would “seriously compromise the development of all other types of missiles.” As a result, Project Thumper was subsequently combined into Wizard, which continued research under the Air Force. 1949 Surface-to-Air missile imagery, Plato rocket imagery In 1949, while the Air Force focused on a strategic defense ABM, the Army established a formal requirement for a theater ABM system. This led to Project Plato in the early 1950s, which was replaced by a succession of systems, including the Phased Array Tracking Radar Intercept On Target, or PATRIOT, named in honor of the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial celebration. These systems provided the building blocks for developing a reliable theater ABM system in advanced versions of the PATRIOT. 1955 Soviet hammer and sickle image… May Day Red Square military parade footage In the mid-1950s, an impending Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, threat spurred the Defense Department to launch redundant, high-priority offensive missile programs by the Army, Navy, and Air Force that blurred distinctions between their roles and missions. In this environment, the Army sought to compete with the Air Force’s Project Wizard for a role in strategic missile defense. 1957 Nike Zeus imagery, Sputnik image In early 1957, while the Air Force Wizard interceptor remained on the drawing board, the Army began developing the nuclear-capable Nike Zeus ABM to be part of an integrated defense system. It quickly became controversial, however, for several technical and operational shortcomings. When the Soviet Union shocked the world with the launch of Sputnik in October 1957, the world’s first artificial satellite, this catalytic event fueled perceptions of a “missile gap” between the U.S. and the Soviets, and heightened concerns about American vulnerabilities to a Soviet ICBM attack. It also created a political environment more supportive of fielding a controversial ABM system. 1958 ARPA logo, imagery of McElroy, National Security Council shield In January 1958, Defense Secretary Neil H. McElroy assigned the active strategic defense mission to the Army, and within weeks, a National Security Council position paper on continental defense called for “an anti-ICBM weapons system as a matter of the highest national priority.” In an effort to counter Soviet strategic gains, Secretary McElroy established the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, in early 1958 to identify new means for advancing defense capabilities. ARPA’s Project Defender introduced an unconventional, far-sighted approach to the challenges anticipated from a future Soviet ICBM threat. The project examined space-based, hit-to-kill interceptors to destroy attacking missiles during their boost phase. These collective concepts were known as BAMBI, for Ballistic Missile Boost Intercept. 1961 Soviet flag, missile intercept imagery or artist’s conception In March 1961, the Soviet Union achieved the first non-nuclear intercept of a ballistic missile warhead by an ABM interceptor. Soviet plans for an operational ABM system included nuclear-armed interceptors. 1962 American Flag… Cuban Missile Crisis shipboard and inland missile launch pad photos and video In July 1962, the Soviet Union secretly began placing medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba to improve its inferior strategic posture against the United States. In October, U.S. surveillance photography revealed the buildup and the U.S. demanded removal of the missiles. When the Soviets balked, the resulting crisis took the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. The Soviets finally agreed to withdraw the missiles, but after backing down they began aggressively improving their ICBM program. 1963 Nike Zeus, Nike X imagery, video, phased array radar installations Nike Zeus tests demonstrated the system’s ability to intercept an ICBM warhead, but by early 1963 its shortcomings scuttled it as a viable ABM system. Notable among these was the inability of the mechanically-steered Zeus acquisition radars to cope with a massive Soviet attack envisioned for the 1960s, plus the inability of the system to adequately discriminate between warheads and decoys. Instead, the Defense Department reoriented its ABM efforts in an improved system called Nike-X, which included a new family of advanced electronic phased-array radars that could detect and track a large number of objects simultaneously. Nike-X also featured a new nuclear-armed, high-acceleration, terminal defense missile called Sprint, which allowed atmospheric filtering to discriminate between decoys and warheads, and included the longer-range Nike Zeus interceptor, which was subsequently modified and renamed Spartan, for high altitude targets. Together, the two systems represented a “layered” defense that could intercept incoming missiles both within the atmosphere and above it. 1964 Chinese flag or related Chinese military imagery The Johnson Administration sought to counter a Soviet ABM deployment through an arms control agreement or by overcoming it with offensive weapons. Yet, following the October 1964 detonation of Communist China’s first atomic explosive, the debate over a Nike-X ABM system deployment began shifting in favor of a limited, or “thin,” ABM deployment to counter China instead of a “heavy” ABM deployment to counter the Soviets. 1967 Atomic bomb cloud. Threat diagram, Johnson and McNamara, Nike-X imagery, Navy and Air Force logos or support vehicles, Soviet flag In January 1967, the U.S., Soviet Union and over 80 other countries signed the Outer Space Treaty, which banned putting into orbit, space or upon celestial bodies “nuclear or any weapons of mass destruction.” These restrictions applied not just to offensive weapons, but also included space-based missile defenses. The failure of the Johnson Administration to reach an arms control agreement with the Soviets in June 1967, along with China’s detonation of its first hydrogen bomb that month, led the Johnson administration to reconsider a Nike-X deployment. In September, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara announced a thin anti-Chinese ABM system deployment based on the Nike-X system, which was subsequently renamed Sentinel. The Navy and Air Force also developed concepts for ABM systems. The Navy’s midcourse Sea-Based Anti-Ballistic Missile Intercept System envisioned interceptors on surface vessels and submarines. The Air Force Airborne Ballistic Missile Intercept System, intended to intercept submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks, envisioned mounting interceptors on aircraft such as the C-5A, on around-the-clock patrols overseas adjacent to major cities. 1968 Sentinel Missile imagery, LBJ, Chinese flag, ICBM Hardsite diagram or photo, concept diagrams, mobile launchers versus silos In June 1968, the Johnson Administration and its Senate supporters began shifting the justification for the Sentinel ABM system away from its “thin” urban defense against Chinese missiles towards “hardsite” defense of land-based ICBMs and a “thick” anti-Soviet ABM system to save American lives against a large-scale Soviet attack. The shift coincided with a Soviet agreement to begin long-sought arms control negotiations, and reflected the political viability of the Sentinel system as a potential arms control “bargaining chip.” 1969 Nixon portrait, Sentinal ABM imagery In 1969, responding partly to the public backlash over locating nuclear-armed missile interceptors near urban areas, President Richard M. Nixon reoriented the Sentinel ABM system away from urban defense. Instead, he deployed the system, which he renamed “Safeguard,” towards protecting the nation’s strategic deterrent, silo-based Minuteman ICBMs, against a Soviet attack. Safeguard later became a crucial bargaining chip during SALT, or Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. 1970 Chinese flag and missile launch imagery China’s missile development program continued maturing in the 1970s. After first failing to launch a satellite into Earth orbit in 1969, China succeeded in April 1970 . With the launch, China became the fifth nation, including the Soviet Union, the U.S., France and Japan, to demonstrate a space launch capability . Ironically, the launch would have occurred sooner, but internal conflicts with China’s Red Guards the previous year resulted in the reassignment of China’s satellite engineers to irrigation ditch construction in the provinces. 1972 Nixon and Brezhnev photo, video imagery In May 1972, U.S.-Soviet arms control talks resulted in the ABM Treaty, which restricted the deployment of any strategic space-based, sea-based, or mobile ABM systems, such as the Navy and Air Force’s ballistic missile intercept systems. The treaty prohibited nationwide missile defense systems. It allowed each side two fixed sites to defend a missile field and national command authorities, respectively, with no more than 100 total interceptors for both sites. A 1974 treaty protocol limited deployment to one site, still allowing up to 100 interceptors. 1975 Safeguard Grand Forks photo, before and after decommissioning The single U.S. Safeguard site at Grand Forks, North Dakota, became operational in October of 1975 and closed at the direction of Congress in February 1976, because it could be easily overwhelmed by a Soviet attack and the detonation of its nuclear-armed warheads would blind its own radars. 1979 Homing Overlay Equipment image, MX Missile images and/or launch video imagery By the late 1970s, improvements in the accuracy of Soviet SS-18 ICBMs, which threatened the survivability of U.S. land-based ICBMs, prompted military planners to reconsider an ABM system to defend them. The Army had been developing a non-nuclear “hit-to-kill” interceptor prior to Safeguard, and in 1979 began a series of tests called the “Homing Overlay Experiment” to prove the viability of “hitting a bullet with a bullet.” It would take five years and four launches to achieve a successful interception. 1980 Laser weapon visual or diagram, or schematic or video of laser emitter design In 1980, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA’s successor, turned its attention to exploiting emerging laser and particle beam technologies for missile defense. DARPA examined the possibility of creating a space-based laser battle station to target Soviet ICBM launch sites and also envisioned ground-based particle beam weapons for terminal defense and space-based particle beam weapons for boost and midcourse defense. 1983 Portrait of President Reagan, SDI logo, diagram imagery In March 1983, President Ronald W. Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative as an alternative to nuclear deterrence and the specter of mutually assured destruction. The president began the SDI program to determine whether or not missile defenses were technically feasible. A Congressional critic dismissed the initiative as “reckless Star Wars schemes,” a nickname that stuck. 1984 SDI logo or name, Ronald Reagan footage, General James Abrahamson imagery In January 1984, President Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 119 that officially defined SDI as a “broad-based, centrally managed research effort to identify and develop the key technologies necessary for an effective strategic defense.” Its focus was to be on technologies for sensing, tracking and destroying missiles and warheads, along with command and control, survivability and sustainability. The SDI charter was signed into law in April of that year. It combined existing projects already underway in several different agencies, including space-based missile defenses restricted by the 1972 ABM Treaty. 1985 Laser beam image, diagram and video, map of Hawaii imagery In June 1985, in the most convincing demonstration of SDI technology yet, a ground-based laser successfully bounced a low-power (4 watt) beam off a reflector on the space shuttle Discovery, orbiting 230 miles overhead at a speed of 17,000 miles an hour. Less than three months later, a high-powered chemical laser at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico successfully destroyed a stationary missile body. Together, these two experiments demonstrated the viability of ground-based laser missile defenses. 1987 Strategic Defense System diagram, logo, components schematic imagery By autumn 1987, the SDI Organization had developed a national defense concept composed of space- and ground-based interceptors and sensors linked to a battle management system. This Strategic Defense System (or SDS) Phase I architecture proposed hit-to-kill technology to partially defend the United States against a massive Soviet missile attack. Controversy erupted over its expense, vulnerability, and partial effectiveness, as well as its compliance with the 1972 ABM Treaty. 1989 Torn Russian flag , Berlin Wall dismantling video imagery GHWBush imagery In the late 1980s, the prolonged Soviet conflict in Afghanistan combined with a stagnant Soviet economy, helped influence sweeping changes in Eastern Europe’s political landscape. Free elections in 1989 toppled many Communist regimes and led to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November, which signaled an end to the Cold War. In response to the shifting strategic landscape, President George H.W. Bush ordered a review of the SDI program in late 1989. 1990 GHWBush imagery Brilliant Pebbles In 1990, with signs of the Cold War ending, the Bush Administration reoriented the SDI program into a new system called GPALS, or Global Protection Against Limited Strikes. Its goal was to defend America against limited strategic missile attacks and protect deployed U.S. forces and allies from shorter-range ballistic missiles. GPALS included an integrated architecture with three components: A new space-based hit-to-kill defense called Brilliant Pebbles, which was based on many small, autonomous interceptors, offered solutions to the cost and survivability issues of the SDS Phase I architecture. Also included were ground- and sea-based theater missile defenses, and limited ground-based national missile defenses. 1991 Desert Storm logo, SCUD missile footage or stills, Patriot imagery In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraqi SCUD missiles were launched at targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia. While these V-2 descendants carried conventional explosive warheads, they had the potential of delivering chemical or biological weapons. The Army’s PATRIOT air defense missile demonstrated its ABM capability for the first time in warfare against the SCUD attacks during Operation Desert Storm. 1991 ERIS logo , rendering or video imagery On January 29, 1991, the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization’s Exoatmospheric Reentry Vehicle Interceptor System (or ERIS), using technology from the Homing Overlay Experiment, marked its first successful “hit-to-kill” interception of a mock target of tethered decoys outside the earth’s atmosphere. The ERIS demonstrated a significantly longer range than the PATRIOT missile, hitting higher speed targets without explosives. ERIS successfully guided itself to the target without ground-based guidance in the presence of multiple decoys. 1991 START Treaty image, G.H.W. Bush and Gorbachev On July 31, 1991, five months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the START, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which helped symbolize the ending of the Cold War. In it, President Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to set ceilings on U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. 1991 Missile Defense Act logo, G.H. W. Bush signing ceremony imagery In December 1991, President Bush signed the Missile Defense Act of 1991. It mandated a “cost effective, operationally effective, and ABM Treaty-compliant anti-ballistic missile system” to protect against limited threats. It also authorized the Defense Department to “aggressively pursue” theater missile defenses to protect deployed U.S. troops. 1993 Portrait of President Clinton, Army, Navy, AF logos, BMDO logo The trend towards theater missile defense continued under President William J. Clinton, who emphasized ABM Treaty compliance. He divided the GPALS architecture into separate components, cancelled Brilliant Pebbles, and changed the name of SDIO to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization as a reflection of the program’s reorientation. Improvements in the PATRIOT resulted in the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, or PAC-3. There was also a new Army missile, the Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD. The Navy introduced modifications to the shipborne Aegis air defense system in lower-tier Area Defense and upper-tier Theater Wide programs, and the Air Force began development of an Airborne Laser for boost-phase missile defense. 1993 National Security Restoration Act image , Republican elephant logo In the lead-up to 1993 congressional elections, part of the Republican “Contract With America” called for the Defense Department to “develop for deployment at the earliest possible date a cost-effective, operational anti-ballistic missile defense system to protect the U.S. against ballistic missile threats.” After Republicans swept both houses of Congress in the elections, strategic missile defense received renewed congressional interest. 1996 Image of the houses of Congress, Clinton signing ceremony in oval office By 1996 strategic missile defense overshadowed theater defense. New intelligence assessments of ballistic missile threats to America, along with the Republican-controlled Congress, gave the initiative, now called National Missile Defense, or NMD, new impetus. 1998 Pakistani Flag, India flag imagery Regional international tensions rose in 1998 as Pakistan tested a missile with a conventional warhead and 950 mile range. In May of that year, both Pakistan and neighboring India performed multiple nuclear weapons tests. 1998 Donald Rumsfeld image, North Korean flag imagery In 1998, North Korea’s missile development program drew international attention. In July 1998, the bipartisan Rumsfeld commission issued findings that concluded, “a country like North Korea could deploy an ICBM ‘within about five years of a decision to develop’ one.” The following month, North Korea sent shock waves through the global community with its attempt to launch a three-stage rocket. A satellite carried aboard a short-range Scud derivative was destroyed when the third stage exploded, but it nonetheless caught the attention and concern of the world. 1999 Congress dome image , United Nations headquarters imagery In July 1999, an emerging rogue nation missile threat influenced President Clinton to sign the National Missile Defense Act of 1999. The Act called for the deployment of “an effective National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against limited ballistic missile attack whether accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate.” In September, the intelligence community released the National Intelligence Estimate that concluded, “…during the next 15 years the United States most likely will face ICBM threats from Russia, China, and North Korea, probably from Iran, and possibly from Iraq.” 1999 President Clinton image, NMD imagery and logo, White House imagery In September 1999, President Clinton announced his decision to defer deployment of the NMD system to his successor. The decision followed a series of test failures, delays in some program components, and controversy over altering the ABM Treaty. 2001 Portrait of President GWBush, other images of his speech delivery Upon taking office in January 2001, President George W. Bush established a strong commitment to deploying missile defense in the shortest possible time. After reevaluating the terms of the ABM Treaty, the President announced later in the year the need for “a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today’s world.” Sept 11, 2001 September 11 imagery, video, imagery of troops boarding transport aircraft The Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review, issued in September 2001, reflected the Bush Administration’s enhanced commitment to missile defense. The Review “refocused and revitalized the missile defense program, shifting from a single-site ‘national’ missile defense approach to a broad-based research, development, and testing effort, aimed at deployment of layered missile defenses.” The Review added, “These defenses will help protect U.S. forward-deployed forces. Moreover, they will provide limited defense against missile threats not only for the American people, but also for U.S. friends and allies.” 2001 Hit-to-kill image, Bush imagery or video On December 3, 2001, the NMD program, now called Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, conducted its fifth “hit-to-kill” test. The kill vehicle successfully destroyed a target warhead outside the atmosphere eight minutes after separation from its booster. Ten days later, on December 13th, President Bush announced the six-month notice of the U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty. In doing so, he cited the many circumstances that had made the world a different place, in particular, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the new source of threats. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the decision, “a mistake.” 2002 MDA seal and imagery On January 2, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld announced the reorganization of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization into the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). In his announcement, he described a layered defense capable of intercepting an incoming missile at any stage of its attack. This defense, described as a much more ambitious effort than the Pentagon’s previous focus, was intended to “defend the United States, its deployed forces, allies and friends from ballistic missile attack.” 2002 Layered defense diagram image, stressing three phases of flight, Rumsfeld and Kadish images On December 17, 2002, President Bush issued a statement announcing the “National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense,” that required the Defense Secretary to deploy an initial set of missile defense capabilities in 2004. Under the President’s direction, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and BMDO Director, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Ronald T. Kadish, reoriented missile defense towards an integrated, layered program. The system concept envisioned attacking warheads and missiles in all phases of their flight – boost, midcourse, and terminal – with the goal of providing global defenses against missiles of all ranges. 2004 Fort Greely Missile insertion imagery In September 2004, sixty years after the first V-2 missiles struck Great Britain, MDA began limited defensive operations of its Ballistic Missile Defense System or BMDS. The first deployment placed five long-range Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska. Working in conjunction with the PAC-3 interceptor for short-range ballistic missile defense, and the Aegis STANDARD Missile-3 for medium-range missiles, the system provided a limited defense of the continental United States, and limited protection for deployed U.S. forces, friends and allies against near-term ballistic missile threats. 2005 SBX In 2005, MDA oversaw the assembly and installation of the world’s largest mobile X-band radar for use in the Ballistic Missile Defense System. In July 2005, MDA officially named the semi-submersible 50,000-ton seagoing vessel the “Sea-Based X-Band Radar-1,” or “SBX-1,” which will provide advanced tracking and decoy discrimination as a principal midcourse sensor when deployed at its port in Adak, Alaska. 2006 Mobile missile defense launchers imagery A 2006 North Atlantic Treaty Organization Review highlighted the growing importance of missile defense and cited it as one of the first crisis response steps that would be taken by a NATO ally. The Review recognized the availability of weapons from foreign suppliers such as North Korea, and potential threats to NATO countries from long-range ballistic missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction. 2007 SM-3 missile launch imagery In November 2007, MDA successfully tested its sea-based capability. A pair of Standard Missile-3s (SM-3) launched from an Aegis cruiser in the Pacific Ocean collided with two ballistic missile targets launched from the Pacific Missile Range Test Facility in Hawaii. The intercepts occurred about 100 miles above the Pacific and marked the tenth and eleventh intercepts of thirteen scheduled attempts for the program, and the 32nd and 33rd intercepts for the Agency’s hit-to-kill technology development. 2008 Diagram of all-phase intercept concept, stills of its components (GMD interceptors, PAC-3 interceptor, Aegis SM-3) imagery Vice President Richard B. Cheney underscored the importance for the next president to continue supporting missile defense at a dinner commemorating the 25th anniversary of President Reagan’s March 1983 SDI proposal. He suggested “at least 27” countries had the capability to launch ballistic missiles, including “hostile regimes that oppress their own people, seek to intimidate and dominate their neighbors and actively support terrorist groups.” In establishing the foundation for the Ballistic Missile Defense System, MDA adopted a spiral development approach to acquisition, which entails fielding an initial capability and evolving it through successive block improvements over time. This approach allows MDA the flexibility to embrace new technologies while continuously adapting to evolving threats.