Huntsville origins of ballistic missile defense

In September 1966, the CSA established the Nike-X System Office; located in Washington, DC, LTG Austin W. Betts was named Nike-X System Manager; Betts also served as the Army Chief of Research and Development. Sentinel System

In January 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced improvements in the Soviet Union’s long-range missile capabilities and their deployment of a limited ABM system (Galosh) near Moscow. China exploded their first thermonuclear device in June 1967, and, at the same time, the U.S. and the Soviets were having Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). These led to an agreement known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty; this froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at existing levels. This, however, ill-defined the threat, since both sides had begun to have an increasing number of missiles with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warheads.

Accelerating at 100 g, the SPRINT would intercept ‘leaking’ targets at between 5.0- to 100-kft (1.5- to 30-km) altitude in at most 15 seconds, and destroy them with a relatively small nuclear warhead. Martin Company of Orlando, Florida, was the SPRINT contractor. The HIBEX (HIgh Boost Experiment) missile was a design predecessor and competitor to the SPRINT missile; it was a similar high-acceleration missile in the early 1960s, with a technological transfer from that program to the SPRINT development program.

Located in a pyramid-shaped building, the MSR had over 20,000 elements distributed in arrays on its four faces. Developed by General Electric, PAR had a huge phased-array antenna pointed north to detect nuclear warheads fired by China or the Soviet Union as they passed over the North Pole. With the array incorporating 6,888 elements, the PAR was capable of identifying and tracking incoming basket-ball-sized targets at ranges up to 2,000 miles (3,200 km).

The primary function of the central DPS was managing system resources and controlling a large radar-tracking and missile-guidance system in real time. The central logic and control could be configured with up to ten processors, each with a throughput of about 1.5 million instructions per second. Every processor had access to each of several read-only instruction memories as well as read-write memories; these had a memory-cycle time of 500 nanoseconds and a double-word size of 64 bits to provide a memory bandwidth in excess of that required for maximum performance of a single processor.

The Army Corps of Engineers (CoE) established a nationwide district based out of Huntsville in October 1967. Designated CoE-Huntsville and under BG (later MG) Robert P. Young, their exclusive mission was to handle the huge BMD site installations expected over the coming years.

SENTINEL / SAFEGUARD SYSTEM COMMAND

In November 1967, A Sentinel System Office was established in the OCS, Washington, D.C., and LTG Alfred D. Starbird was named the Sentinel System Manager. The Sentinel System Command (SENSCOM), located at Redstone Arsenal, was formed, absorbing the former NXPO; COL Ivey O. Drewry was promoted to Brigadier General and made Commander. SENSCOM was assigned the Kwajalein Test Site as a subordinate element; in 1968, this was renamed Kwajalein Missile Range (KMR). The Sentinel Logistics Command moved from Washington, D.C. to Huntsville.

The Army Ballistic Missile Defense Agency (ABMDA) was formed in 1968, directed by Julian Davidson and reporting to CSA. Although headquartered in Washington, ABMDA had a large operation in Huntsville and took over Sentinel and some other BMD projects previously under MICOM. ABMDA established the Nike-X Development Office (NXDO), and it and SENSCOM set up operations in a new facility at 110 Wynn Drive in the Research Park, directly adjacent to TBE’s campus. Built by a commercial firm for lease to the government, the building complex had 300,000 ft2 of office space and was also occupied by the CoE-Huntsville and the Sentinel Logistics Command. These were the first of a long series of Army BMD organizations at this location.

In March 1969, newly inaugurated President Richard M. Nixon changed the nation’s BMD system from Sentinel to Safeguard, a system composed of the same basic components as Sentinel but intended to protect up to 12 strategic military sites and Washington, D.C. – primarily from low-intensity attacks by China and unintentional launches of Soviet missiles. Organizationally, it was mainly a change in names from Sentinel to Safeguard – SENSCOM became the Safeguard System Command (SAFSCOM).

On 31 July 1969, BG Ivey Drewry, then CG of SAFSCOM, retired; BG Robert C. Marshall was named CG. On 6 August, the Senate authorized (by two votes) the deployment of the Safeguard System. (See next Chapter for Continuation of the Safeguard System.)

MISSILE INTELLIGENCE ORIGINS

In June 1956, General Medaris established a Signals Intelligence Office on the ABMA R&D Staff to obtain missile and space intelligence data and report on foreign activities. With six engineers and analysts, this was the first organizational existence of what would eventually become a major intelligence operation on Redstone Arsenal.

Carl E. Duckett came to Redstone Arsenal among the civil service personnel transferred from White Sands Proving Grounds (WSPG) with Wernher von Braun's team. In July 1956, he joined the ABMA Guidance and Control Laboratory as a telemetry specialist and also served as an advisor to the commanding officer. It is likely that he also participated in the activities of the Signals Intelligence Office.

During WWII, Duckett had served as a radar technician in the U.S. Army. Later assigned to the WSPG, he participated in the first launches of rebuilt German V-2 rockets and gained knowledge of the telemetry equipment used in this testing. Upon leaving Army active duty, Duckett remained at White Sands as a civil-service employee. During his tenure at WSPG, he learned from the Germans all about the telemetry previously used at Peenemünde.

In early 1957, it became known that the Soviet Union was testing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at their Tyuratam range in Ukraine. The CIA opened a listening station in northeast Iran, some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) across the Caspian Sea from the range. Tapes were made of signals obtained by the listening post, and an ad hoc activity called Jam Session was started by the CIA for their interpretation; Duckett was asked to be a Jam Session participant. He soon recognized that the Russians were basically using the same telemetry frequencies and formats originally developed by the Germans at Peenemünde.

Telemetry is the radio system used to transmit instrumentation signals generated at one point to another point for analysis. It is vital to rocket launch operations, sending pulsed information from sensors on the rocket – pressure, temperature, acceleration, etc. – back to the ground. Interpretation of these signals gives operational characteristics of the rocket.

With the launch by the USSR of Sputnik I on 4 October 1957, the CIA assembled a Telemetry and Beacon Analysis Committee (TABAC) to analyze the signals recorded from the launch at Tyuratam as well as those heard all over the world from the satellite. The telemetry used on Sputnik I had two transmitters, 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, with pulse-position modulation on one and pulse-duration on the other. The launch-vehicle itself had the Tral telemetry system; this was a much more complex version of pulse-position modulation developed specifically for monitoring by the NII (Research Institute) 885.

Duckett was asked to be a leader in the TABAC effort. The telemetry from the satellites was similar to the earlier German format, but it required about 18 months to calibrate the Tral signals and understand how they related to the launch-vehicle characteristics. The payoff, however, was significant; for the next two decades this provided a major window into the testing and operation of Soviet missiles.

In mid-1958, the ABMA became a sub-unit of the newly formed AOMC. At that time, a small Missile Intelligence Division, led by Duckett, was established as a separate unit of ABMA. A receiving station with a 84-ft parabolic-dish antenna was built by ARGMA atop Madkin Mountain, allowing local reception of signals from Soviet satellites. This antenna could be seen from throughout the city, but its purpose was never given a public disclosure.

When MICOM was formed in August 1962, the Missile Intelligence Directorate (MID) was established. With about 75 personnel and facilities in Building 4505, an Army Colonel was the Director, and Carl E. Duckett was the Technical Director. The Research Laboratories of Brown Engineering Company was put under contract to provide science and engineering support to the MID.

Duckett joined the CIA in 1963, and eventually, serving in the Number Three position, headed their Directorate of Science and Technology for many years. In the late 1960s, MID obtained one of the first CDC 170 supercomputers, and many others followed through the years. MID also established capabilities in translating foreign-language publications and hardware documentation.

In 1967, the MID became one of the six major production units of the newly formed Army Intelligence Agency. The MID was assigned primary production responsibility for technical intelligence covering foreign tactical ballistic missile systems, ground systems, and defensive missile systems This eventually evolved to become the Missile Intelligence Agency in 1970.

As the BMD activities evolved, so did the responsible organizations. In March 1969, these had become the Safeguard System under the Safeguard System Command (SAFSCOM). BG Ivey Drewry, then CG of SAFSCOM and the ‘father’ of Huntsville’s BMD activities, retired in July 1969; BG Robert C. Marshall was then named CG and served until April 1973. Oswald H. Lange, an original member of the Wernher von Braun rocket team, was the SAFSCOM Chief Scientist.

The primary mission of SAFSCOM was to implement the Safeguard System; working closely with the Corps of Engineers (CoE) -Huntsville, sites were started near Malmstrom AFB, Montana, and Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota. COL Hartsell H. Northington, P.E., of the CoE-Huntsville was in charge of the actual installation activities.

From the start of BMD developments, Bell Telephone Laboratory and its sister firm, Western Electric Company (BTL/WECo), had served as the system prime contractor. BTL/WECo informed the government that they would withdraw from defense work in early 1971. This not only affected the Safeguard hardware development but also the engineering analysis and system integration activities. SAFSCOM initiated a large procurement for a System Engineering and Technical Assistance Contractor (SETAC), attracting many major defense firms.

Led by R. Stephen McCarter, previously head of BTL's Radar Research Department, many of the BTL engineers and scientists joined Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) in Huntsville. The SETAC award was made to TBE in May 1971, to a large extent based on the former BTL personnel.

The United States and the USSR had begun Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) in November 1969. By 1972, an agreement had been reached to limit strategic defensive systems. Each country was allowed two sites at which it could base a defensive system, one for the capital and one for ICBM silos. The ABM Treaty was signed on 26 May by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev; the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty on 3 August 1972.

The Kwajalein Test Site (later renamed Kwajalein Missile Range) in the South Pacific had been transferred from the U.S. Navy to the U.S. Army in 1964. A facility for testing subsystems for Safeguard was set up on Meck Island, a part of the Kwajalein Test Site. The facility consisted of a prototype MSR, SPRINT and SPARTAN missile subsystems (described earlier), and a DPC. During the R&D phase, a series of test processes were implemented on Meck, each with increasing complexity and more stressing system objectives. The Safeguard System test program, which began at Kwajalein in 1970, was completed in August 1974. Of the 54 tests conducted, 47 were successful, 2 partially successful, and only 5 were classified as failures. In a majority of the tests, only software changes were involved.

The ABM Treaty was amended in July 1974, permitting only a single defensive site per party with a total of 100 interceptor missiles. The sites selected were Moscow for the USSR and the North Dakota Safeguard Complex for the U.S. Construction continued at what was called the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex near Grand Forks AFB; this finally reached initial operational condition in April 1975, and was declared fully operational on 1 October with 70 SPRINT and 30 SPARTAN missiles. However, the U.S. had a fully authorized and operating BMD system for only one day!

On 2 October 1975, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to shut down the Safeguard BMD system. In February 1976, the Grand Forks site was placed into caretaker status, and then closed two years later. In general, the U.S. public was ‘war-weary’ from Viet Nam and was not interested in missile defense. The PAR was transferred to the U.S. Air Force, where it was operated as part of its space-track and early-warning system.