Ballistic Missile Defense: Current Status of Strategic Target System

摘要

STARS is a BMDO program managed by the U. S. Army Space and Strategic DefenseCommand (SSDC). It began in 1985 in response to concerns that the supply of surplus Minuteman I boosters used to launch targets and other experiments on intercontinental ballistic missile flight trajectories in support of the Strategic Defense Initiative would be depleted by 1988. SSDC tasked Sandia National Laboratories, a Department of Energy laboratory, to develop an alternative launch vehicle using surplus Polaris boosters. Two STARS booster configurations were developed, STARS I and STARS II. STARS I consists of refurbished Polaris first and second stages and a commercially procured Orbus I third stage (see fig. 1). It can deploy single or multiple payloads, but the multiple payloads cannot be deployed in a manner that simulates the operation of a post-boost vehicle (PBv).1 To meet this specific need, Sandia developed an Operations and Deployment Experiments Simulator (ODES), which functions as a PBV. (See app. I, fig. I. 1.) When ODES is added to STARS I, the configuration is designated STARS II.