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Air Force personnel readied target missiles for launch when in view of the satellite, the hopes and
aspirations of program officials soared. During the sixth orbit a massive electrical power failure
occurred aboard MIDAS 5, and all control over the vehicle was lost.”° Once again the mission
ended prematurely—and the worst of the Ruina report implications seemed confirmed: the MIDAS
program, if not the concept, was a resounding failure.

Shortly after returning to Sunnyvale from the southern California launch site, Joe Knopow
was rushed to the hospital where he underwent surgery for hemorrhaging ulcers. As often happens
during the introduction of a new technical innovation, the innovator lights the fire, but others are
called on to tend the hearth and fan the flames. So it was in this instance. The Lockheed Missiles &
Space Company reassigned Knopow as Director of its Electronics Division. His deputy, John
Solvason, picked up the reigns as MIDAS program manager.””

Solvason had his hands full. The new Lockheed manager on the west coast would supervise
the MIDAS program as a research and development effort, deal with a new investigating
committee established by the Air Force in response to the Ruina report, and attend to the fabrication
and test of the remaining Series I MIDAS satellites. (In the wake of the Ruina report, the Defense
Department cancelled Series IV flights and substituted additional radiometric missions in their
place to conduct further measurements of the Earth’s background radiation.) In Washington D.C.,
meanwhile, other officials sought to strictly compass Air Force efforts on a redirected program.

Knowing that Air Force leaders continued to favor an operational MIDAS in spite of the

Ruina report, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Harold Brown, on 25 June 1962

“Heavy emphasis would be placed on systems analysis, systems development, and further
radiometric measurements of the Earth’s background radiation. The Air Force, nevertheless, still
called on the Lockheed program office to produce yet another program development plan for a
simplified operational MIDAS comprised of random polar orbits. (See R. Cargill Hall, Program
461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-47.)

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A number of people assisted in the preparation of this history, and I am indebted to them.
Special thanks are owed original participants who contributed their recollections in person or by
phone, and commented on initial drafts, particularly Joseph Knopow and Marvin Boatright.
Richard Friedman at TRW helped with comment and documentation. Upon declassification of
the MIDAS Program in 1999, some ten years after I prepared this history, Harry Waldron, the Air
Force Historian at SMC, kindly permitted me to use the Table of MIDAS launches that he had
prepared, which appears above. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey P. Knopow and Major James Rosolanka,

USAF, provided the illustrations that appear in this work.

REFERENCES,

1. Interview Transcript, Herbert M. Zolot with Joseph J. Knopow, 19 September 1985, HQ Air
Force Space Command/HO, p. 3.

2. Ibid., pp. 11-13; Plan, Pied Piper Development Plan, Vol. I, Subsystem G, Infrared
Reconnaissance, LMSD-1536, 1 March 1956, p. 1; R. Cargill Hall, Program 461 Historical
Monograph, LMSC-B 109530, 15 June 1965, p. 3-2. At The RAND Corporation, William Kellogg
and Sidney Passman also had begun studying infrared techniques used to detect the launch and
provide for the interception of ballistic missiles. Their early warning system, also conceived in
1955, however, was predicated on infrared detectors mounted in aircraft flown at 40,000 feet
altitude outside enemy territory, not on detectors mounted in Earth satellites that circled the globe.
Knopow many years later did not recollect the RAND study, but may well have seen it at the time.
Cf., Kellogg and Passman, Infrared Techniques Applied to the Detection and Interception of
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, RAND RM-1572, 21 October 1955.

3. Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 3-2.

4. Ibid., p. 3-11.

5. Knopow interview, pp. 4-5.

6. Msg, From Commander AFBMD, to Commander ARDC, “Chronology of Attack Alarm
System,” 20 February 1959; Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-8; Knopow interview,

p. 96. On 26 September 1958, GOR No. 80 also was amended to include a specific requirement for
missile detection and alarm.

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discrimination devices,” the members urged “most strongly that development and test flights of this
missile detection system be pursued with top priority.” Shortly after the flight of MIDAS 2,
between 6-9 September 1960, 12 members of the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee, led
by W. K. H. Panofsky of Stanford University, also evaluated MIDAS.” This panel likewise found
the concept to be sound, Though acknowledging major technical difficulties had yet to be
overcome, panel members recommended vigorous efforts to achieve an operational system in
1963."*

Despite the scientific approbation, Defense Department leaders maintained the funding
restrictions imposed on MIDAS earlier in
1960 and refused to approve an
operational system. The MIDAS Program
Director at the Air Force Ballistic Missiles
Division in Inglewood, Lt Col Quentin A.
("Q") Riepe, advised Lockheed in August
that this state of affairs bespoke “a lack of
confidence that the current R&D program
can provide a reliable and effective
[operational] system.” Accordingly, he

redirected the program. It would now

proceed toward development and system Figure 5. The first Air Force MIDAS Program Director,
Col Quentin (“Q”) Riepe (1959-1961).

test flights. Emphasis would be placed on

“The panel members included physicists Harold Brown, Director of the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, Sidney Drell, Stanford University, and Jerome Weisner of MIT.

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During the first week of May 1963, while final preparations for the launch of MIDAS 7

were underway on the coast of southern California, Harold Brown found himself under heavy fire
from both sides of the aisle in Congress. Addressing the subject of missile defense alarm during
appropriation hearings in the House of Representatives, Brown announced that the MIDAS
program had been partially terminated earlier in the year and reduced to a few remaining test flights
and experiments—all intended to explore design problems and background radiation. Should the
infrared system prove itself, he concluded, it might again be reconsidered “if a cheap, reliable
launch vehicle, and simple satellites of long life, can be designed.” But even a research program
was too much in the view of Daniel J. Flood, a Democrat from Pennsylvania: “What makés you . . .
want to turn this over to the Air Force and say, ‘Go and sin no more,’ with another [deleted]
million? Do you not feel a little perturbed that these people are not qualified or competent or the
proper agency to do the program. . . ? What about the Bureau of Anitnal Husbandry,” Flood jibed,
“Or something like that?” George H. Mahon, a Texas Democrat, held Lockheed primarily
responsible for the sorry state of MIDAS affairs. “To go back to a company that has failed, and to
people who have failed to solve the problem, seems to be somewhat questionable,” he asserted. The
Defense Department, Mahon continued, should consider contracting with other companies for this
program. Glenard P. Lipscomb, a California Republican, emphatically agreed: “It is on the record
that the company failed.” “I think the program is what I said failed,” Brown replied tartly.”"

The Air Force, Lockheed, and Aerojet would be granted the reduced funds for MIDAS in
Fiscal Year 1964, but in early May 1963 the stinging indictment—failure—had been securely
pinned to their collective backsides. Up and down the chain of command, program participants
knew well that another flight failure would result in major changes, changes likely to include

sharply altered careers. That knowledge created an environment of palpable tension as preparations

20


In June 1955 Joseph J. Knopow, a 41-year-old electrical engineer in the Operations
Analysis Office, Directorate of Operations, Headquarters USAF, joined the Lockheed Aircraft
Corporation in Van Nuys, California.” The career move was hardly novel. Engineers of all kinds
changed employers frequently in a burgeoning aeronautical industry at that time fashioning turbojet
powered intercontinental bombers and transports, and ballistic missiles of equivalent ranges. In this
instance, however, the confluence of Knopow’s particular interests, the Air Force contract
competition for a strategic reconnaissance satellite, and a genuine concern among U.S. leaders over
a possible Soviet nuclear surprise attack, would affect directly the evolution of American missile
early warning systems.

Missile Defense Alarm: The Early Years

Shortly after arriving in Van Nuys in the simmer of 1955, the firm posted Knopow to Palo
Alto, California, 400 miles north in the Bay area. There, the newly named Lockheed Missiles and
Space Division had just begun work on the company’s proposal for what would become known as
the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite program. Back at the Pentagon in the early 1950s, Knopow
had evaluated the technology of infrared systems for detecting aircraft and submarines. These
studies, based largely on German Luftwaffe literature of a World War II nighttime air-to-air infrared
detection system called “Kiel IV,” prompted the electrical engineer to consider infrared detection in
spaceborne applications. The proper lead sulphide detectors, sufficiently cooled and combined with
the needed optical telescope, he reasoned, could be employed in a satellite to detect the burning
plumes of ballistic rockets ascending through the atmosphere, and even the exhaust of high altitude

air-breathing vehicles.'

. Knopow (pronounced n&-po) joined a select group led by Elwood Quesada and Joseph
Charyk that formed the nucleus of what would eventually become the Lockheed Missiles &
Space Company, headquartered in Sunnyvale, close by Palo Alto, California.

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Figure 14. The DSP satellite, MIDAS’s successor.

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wrote to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development, Brockway
McMillan. “As I have previously pointed out,” Brown observed, “the MIDAS system should not be
oriented toward an operational system at this time.” Instead, it should remain “an R&D program
oriented toward developing the techniques necessary to resolve the remaining basic issues and must
not [be directed] toward a specific operational date.” Continued Air Force attempts to press MIDAS
toward an operational system, he concluded, “would make it almost impossible to solve the design
and test problems which have so far resulted in the acquisition of very little in-flight data. By
inhibiting the design of new payloads, it would also be likely to present us with a ‘system’ which
generally did not work, and, when it did, could see only the few missiles of high radiance.” The
Series IM Aerojet-General payload design, Brown strongly implied, could not be relied upon.
Shortly thereafter, on 12 July, McMillan emphatically reminded Air Force Chief of Staff and
former SAC Commander, General Curtis LeMay, that MIDAS R&D program objectives consisted
of background radiometry measurements, target radiometry measurements, and “feasibility
demonstration of sensor detection at 300/kw/STR and 100/kw/STR radiance levels, and possibly at
30/kw/STR ... "8
Except for engineering changes
intended to improve spacecraft reliability, the
four remaining Series II vehicles were
essentially identical to those in Series II with
one important difference: they carried an
improved Aerojet-General infrared payload.

Tt featured a Bouwers concentric telescope

with an 8-inch aperture. The detector array

Payload on its spin table attachment.

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operations at much greater altitudes, and additional objectives—objectives that would significantly
expand the primary mission of basic missile defense alarm. In mid-1963, along with a core
deterrent of long-range bombers, ICBMs, and SLBMs, the Air Force MIDAS appeared likely to
become the “fourth leg” of the nation’s strategic forces.
An Expanded Mission, A New Name

Between mid-1963 and mid-1966, before a firm choice, was made on the next generation of
infrared detection and surveillance satellites, American military leaders reevaluated and again
changed the direction of the MIDAS program. Harold Brown, Director of Defense Research and
Engineering and former skeptic, triggered the first major change on 7 November 1963 when he
ordered the Air Force to cancel the radiometric flights he had requested in late 1961. Now he
substituted in their place a three-flight MIDAS research test series, once mofe directed toward the
detection of missiles, to become known as Program 461. The Aerojet payload in this series,
however, would be designed specifically to detect, in real-time, lower-radiance_sea-launched
ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), and be capable of
determining their launch locations, on two sightings, within a range of 8-to-10 nm. The radiarit
characteristics of all of the missiles detected around the world also would be identified, measured,
and catalogued. Once again the Lockheed spacecraft were to be placed in circular polar -orbits. at
2000 nm, but now possess a reliability of six months operational lifetime, or Mean Time to Failure
(MTTF) as it was termed. Pending further studies, Brown informed Secretary of the Air Force
Eugene Zuckert that the final objectives of the program remained to be established.**

Eight years after Joe Knopow first interested Lockheed officials in infrared surveillance
from space, the MIDAS program remained securely bracketed in research and development. At the

close of 1963, while Air Force and Defense Department leaders considered what kind of follow-on

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Eight months
after taking command
of Lockheed’s
program office, on 19
December 1962, John
Solvason watched
nervously as MIDAS
6 was launched at
Vandenberg AFB.
Eighty seconds after
liftoff the Atlas
veered off course. A
range safety officer
pressed the destruct

button and a shower

of debris cascaded

Figure 10. MIDAS 6 lifting from Launch Complex 1-2 at Point Arguello, VAFB,
on 17 December 1962. (Mounted on railroad tracks, the launch tower, in which the Earthward. Another
vehicle was stacked and checked out, has been rolled back, out of view.)

MIDAS found itself
“asleep in the deep,” this time in the Pacific Ocean.”° Was there no end to it? That question
began to be debated more intensely among American defense leaders in the Pentagon, a debate
now joined by angry politicians who were asked to approve funding of the hapless program that

had already cost taxpayers some 425 million dollars.

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DATE LAUNCH | LAUNCH | SPACECRAFT | PAYLOAD | EVALUATION
VEHICLE | SITE °
2-26-60 Atlas 29D CCAFS Agena A MIDAS 1 Launch Failure
: LC-14 1008 (Atlas/Agena)
5-24-60 | Atlas 45D CCAFS Agena A MIDAS 2 On-Orbit Failure
: LC-14 1007 (Attitude Control)
7-12-61 Atlas 97D | PALC 1-2 Agena B MIDAS 3 On-Orbit Failure
1201 (Electrical Power)
10-21-61 | Atlas 105D | PALC 1-2 Agena B MIDAS 4 Improper Orbit
1202 (Atlas):
4-9-62 Atlas 110D | PALC 1-2 Agena B MIDAS 5 On-Orbit Failure
a 1203 (Electrical Power)
12-17-62] Atlas 131D | PALC 1-2 Agena B MIDAS 6 Launch Failure
1205 (Atlas)
5-9-63 Atlas 119D | PALC 1-2 Agena B MIDAS 7 Success
1206 (47 days)
6-12-63 | Atlas 139D | PALC 1-2 Agena B MIDAS 8 Launch Failure
1204 (Atlas)
7-18-63 Atlas 75D | PALC 1-2 Agena B MIDAS 9 Success
. 1207 (iJ days)
6-9-66 Atlas 7201 VAFB Agena D RTS-1 Fl Launch Failure
(SLV-3A) SLC-3E. 1351 (Agena)
8-19-66 | Atlas 7202 VAFB Agena D RTS-1 F2 Success
(SLV-3A) SLC-3E 1352 (325 days)
10-5-66 Atlas 7203 VAFB Agena D RTS-1 F3 Success
(SLV-3A) SLC-3E 1353 (372 days)

Abbreviations: CCAFS = Cape Canaveral AFS; LC = Launch Complex; MIDAS = Missile
Defense Alarm System; PALC = Point Arguello Launch Complex; RTS = Research Test Series;
SLC = Space Launch Complex; SLV = Standard Launch Vehicle; VAFB = Vandenberg AFB

Note: This table does not include at least eight Discoverer/CORONA flights that mounted
radiometers and that gathered infrared background data for the MIDAS program:
Discoverer/CORONA 19 (12-20-60), 21 (2-18-61), 49 (8-28-62), 52 (9-29-62), 57 (12-14-62), 73
(11-9-63), 92 (2-25-65), and 99 (9-2-65).

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The group formed for this purpose began its evaluation in late September 1961. Chaired by

Jack P. Ruina, Director of ARPA, and composed of experts drawn from within and outside the
government,” during the next two months its members visited MIDAS contractor and government
facilities around the country. Meanwhile, in southern California, on 21 October the Air Force
launched MIDAS 4, An Atlas roll-control failure shortly after launch propelled the Agena into an
improper ascent trajectory. After separating from thé Atlas, the Agena used an abnormal amount of
attitude control gas during first and second bums as onboard systems sought to comperisate for the
trajectory dispersion. Once in orbit, the Agena’s attitude continued to fluctuate and all control gas
was exhausted by the time it completed its first revolution of the Earth. One of two solar arrays
aboard the tumbling Agena failed during the fourth orbit, power depleted, and all electrical
equipthent was shut down after the 56th orbit” The “Ruina Group,” as the Brown investigatory
panel came to:be called, unquestionably had much to consider.

The Ruina Group completed its deliberations and submitted its report, Evaluation of the
MIDAS R&D Program, to Harold Brown on 30 November 1961. Members of the group concluded
that MIDAS probably was worth the effort, but that effort needed a new direction. Members
believed that the infrared system probably could detect large liquid-propellant ICBMs that emitted a
high radiance, though they also agreed with Brown that it probably would be unable to detect solid-
propellant rockets with depressed infrared signatures, such as Minuteman and Polaris. Moreover,
Ralph Zirkind, ARPA’s infrared specialist, speculated that the number of false target alarms

generated by the infrared payload could be as great as 1-10 per six-second scan for a liquid-

“Beside Ruina, the members were Benjamin Alexander, Defense Research Corp.; Robert
S. Sargent, ODDR&E; Dean Gillette, Bell Telephone Laboratories; M. A. Ruderman, UC
Berkeley; Montgomery Johnson, Ford Aeronutronics; Hector R. Skifter, Airborne Instrument
Laboratory; Lt Col G. T. Grottle, USAF; and Knopow’s old nemesis, Ralph Zirkind of ARPA.

14


attack. The Lockheed-Aerojet space-based system, he averred, would double the warning time to 30
minutes.’

An additional 15 minutes warning appealed mightily to key members of General Thomas
Power’s staff at the Strategic Air Command (SAC). More SAC bombers could be scrambled into
the air, and the number of bombers maintained on airborne alert could be reduced. They, too, lent
their support, and SAC came down hard in favor of an operational MIDAS. Underscoring this
widespread support, on 18 September 1959 Secretary of Defense McElroy reorganized the military
space program, removed ARPA from its direction, and assigned to the Air Force responsibility for
MIDAS. Though the Lockheed program office could take heart in the organizational change and a
growing Air Force advocacy, it translated ultimately into increased requests from the Ballistic
Missile Division in Inglewood for program development plans of an operational MIDAS. And
Knopow, still finding it difficult to sell the technical feasibility of a spaceborne-infrared detector in
other quarters, had yet to demonstrate it in an actual test flight?

Between 1958 and 1964 the Lockheed program office issued a number of program
development plans, each responding to changes in Air Force requirements or direction. Because the
actual performance of the infrared detectors in space remained in question, early plans proposed
operating in low-Earth orbits.” The plans specified multiple satellite configurations, usually 8-to-20
vehicles in controlled polar (later, simplified random polar) orbits at an altitude of 1,000 nautical
miles (nm), a distance increased to 2,000 nm in later plans. Early versions called for four test

evaluation flights in Phase I, six research and development flights in phase Il, and optimistically

“Increasing the altitude would decrease the number of satellites required to cover all of
the Sino-Soviet Block; however, the strength of the infrared signal also decreased inversely with
the square of the range, making it more difficult to detect the target and achieve the desired
resolution.

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John Solvason, and his deputy, Hugh W.
Batten, who had invested a substantial
portion of their careers in the enterprise. To
be sure, the Sunnyvale firm had treated
MIDAS as a proprietary effort and resisted
attempts to establish Aerojet as an associate
contractor and full partner. But it must also
be said that Lockheed had responded to an
inordinate number of Defense Department

changes and program redirections, met the

demands of numerous scientific panels that

Figure 13. Col Karl N. Retzer, last of the Air Force
evaluated MIDAS near-to-death, and erased MIDAS-era Program Directors (1965-1966):

the stigma of. “failure” once used to characterize the entire endeavor: Indeed, two of the three
Lockheed-Aerojet RTS-1 MIDAS satellites just launched in the preceding months, between June
and November 1966, were performing almost flawlessly. Now, with technical success apparently in
hand, the ultimate prize—contracts for the follow-on program—had been snatched away and
awarded to others. That word was unquestionably a most bitter pill to swallow in Sunnyvale,
though the taste of it might still be sweetened if Lockheed’s RTS-1 satellites performed reliably
over time, and if TRW and Aerojet efforts proved the concept for an operational system in
geosynchronous orbit.

The first of the three RTS-1 MIDAS satellites had been launched from Vandenberg AFB
back on 9 June 1966, a few days before the Air Force began evaluating contractor proposals for the

follow-on DSP. (Originally scheduled for launch in late 1965, the flight had been delayed by a

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advanced system definition study of a multi-mission MIDAS. Eight firms replied, and three were
selected to submit studies: Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, and TRW
Space. Technology Laboratories. Advances in electronics and demonstrated infrared payload
performance strongly indicated that these vehicles could be operated successfully in stationary
geosynchronous orbits—22,000 nm above the Earth. That meant fewer (albeit more expensive)
satellites, and fewer ground stations would be needed in the operational system. Requirements
therefore specified a geosynchronous orbit, with the RTS-2 satellites capable of detecting ICBM,
SLBM, and MRBM launches, and of identifying their launch site. Each of these satellites was also
to carry: a secondary Vela-type nuclear detonation detection (NUDET) payload that could identify
and report nuclear/thermonuclear explosions above ground, in the atmosphere, and in outer space.”

During the summer of 1965, while the three aerospace firms prepared definition studies of
the RTS-2, officials in the office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering and others
on the Air Staff continued to evaluate MIDAS technology and its mission in the 1970s. An
improved infrared payload, they reasoned, would also be able to detect the flash of nuclear and
thermonuclear weapons of 20kt or greater yield at the Earth’s surface. Coupled with a NUDET
secondary payload, that made possible Missile Strike Reporting: direct observation of the
detonation of U.S. strategic missiles in enemy territory with the position of detonation established
within about five nm. This capability would become increasingly important as enemy defenses
improved, eliminating any uncertainty about which missiles had actually struck their intended
targets. Accordingly, the contractor proposals for the RTS-2 received at Space Systems Division in
September 1965 were held without evaluation. On 15 November Headquarters USAF redesignated

this follow-on effort, now also featuring missile strike reporting, as Program 266, eventually to

26


the firm’s selection. Now appointed subsystem manager, Knopow set to work in earnest to see that
application realized. He subcontracted with the Aerojet Engineering Corporation for feasibility
studies and then a Series | infrared detector payload devoted exclusively to ICBM detection,” and
with Baird-Atomic, Incorporated, for an infrared scanner to be used in tests on board balloons and
aircraft. The latter effort was crucial, for it had to determine the precise nature of background
radiation (radiation emitted from the Earth, atmosphere, and clouds) that would be encountered by
the infrared detectors viewing the Earth from a satellite.

However promising the Lockheed satellite infrared detection and surveillance system might
appear in theory during the mid-to-late 1950s, many experts seriously questioned its technical
feasibility. Natural background radiation, they argued, could not be distinguished from a target
missile, It might also trigger "falSe alarms" in the satellite payload when sunlight reflected from
clouds illuminated the detectors, for example, instead of the infrared energy radiated by a rocket
engine’s éxhaust during powered ascent. Enough false alarms and a real missile attack might be
discounted. More to the point, respected engineers then designing infrared systems for ground
applications worked with four to seven lead sulphide detectors; coupling 10 of them was considered
the outer limit of the art. The audacious gentlemen at Lockheed and Aerojet proposed coupling 27
detectors in Earth orbit and, using filters, scanning different parts of the spectrum!*

Officials of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Ralph Zirkind in particular,

numbered among those with the gravest of doubts. Created in early 1958, ARPA briefly controlled

all military satellite programs until September 1959, and Knopow found himself increasingly called

“Though theoretically feasible, given the state of the art in 1956-57, detection of high
altitude air-breathing vehicles was judged too ambitious a step to attempt. At Lockheed,
Subsystem G soon became known informally as the “ICBM Attack Alarm System.”

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Knopow succeeded in convincing his
Lockheed superiors of the infrared sensor’s
technical feasibility. The concept was
adopted, identified as the “satellite infrared
detection and surveillance system,” and
incorporated as “Subsystem G” in the firm’s
reconnaissance satellite proposal submitted

to the Air Force in March 1956. In this

application, the Lockheed satellite was to be

stabilized on three axes and positioned in

space nose downward, much resembling a

Figure 1. Joseph J. Knopow, c. 1959-60. pencil with its sharpened end pointed at the
center of the Earth. The payload would consist of a wide-field infrared telescope mounted on a ring
at the forward end of the satellite. The ring, or spin table, would rotate 360 degrees about the
vertical axis, scanning an annular area beneath the vehicle, extending at the outer circumference to
three degrees above the Earth’s horizon, with the inner circumference defined by the limits of the
field of view of the telescope. The telescope optical system would focus on a number of lead
sulphide detectors. These detectors would convert any infrared signals to electrical impulses which,
after amplification, filtering, and processing, could be transmitted back to the Earth.”

In June 1956 the Air Force selected Lockheed as prime contractor for the WS-117L
reconnaissance satellite and awarded a contract to the firm for its development in October.

Subsystem G, the space-based infrared detection and surveillance system, at that time bordered on

science fiction. But it was nonetheless judged a promising application and doubtless contributed to

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propellant ICBM, and an incredible 2000-4000 per scan for a solid-propellant Polaris-size
missile—if it were detectable. The complexity of the existing MIDAS spacecraft, the board
continued, militated against a reliable operational system, and Air Force attention, riveted on
achieving an early operational capability, had contributed to neglect of the research and
development effort needed to attain it. The group therefore recommended that the program be
redirected toward a simplified research and infrared measurement effort. No further consideration
of an operational system should be entertained, the group advised, until Lockheed and the Air Force
demonstrated the technical feasibility of infrared missile detection and alarm.”

On 8 December 1961, Harold Brown sent the Ruina report to Secretary of the Air Force
Eugene Zuckert. In his cover letter, Brown told the Secretary that he agreed with the report’s
conclusions and recommendations, and he expected the Air Force to act on them.” At that time, the
service and Lockheed also had not achieved a success in the reconnaissance satellite program
kriown as SAMOS. The report's implications of mismanagement and misdirected effort thus proved
doubly serious. Air Force directives that complied with Brown's wishes soon moved down through
the chain of command.” The first opportunity to belie at least the report’s conclusions came in
April 1962, with the launch of MIDAS 5.

MIDAS 5, the third and last of the Series II flights carrying a Baird-Atomic infrared
payload, lifted from Vandenberg AFB on 9 April 1962. The spacecraft achieve its planned polar
orbit, stabilized properly, and the solar arrays extended and began generating the needed electrical

power. Turned on, the infrared payload checked-out during the first few orbits of the Earth.” While

“This Baird payload employed a faceted outer optical element. The flight test returns later
showed that each of the facet boundaries reflected sunlight, which inundated the system with
noise, a crucial design flaw; whether it would have detected missile launches in the presenice of
high level noise remained open to question.

15


Both men dedicated themselves to MIDAS and for the next few years “lived” for the program; they
ate, drank, slept, dreamt, and thought about it 24-hours a day. The MIDAS staff at Lockheed,
meanwhile, had increased in size from. one person in mid-1956 to about 50 engineers and
administrative support personne] at the close of 1958. While Knopow divided his efforts between
“convincing” the skeptics and attending to the Agena satellites and infrared payloads scheduled for
demonstration test flights in late 1959, other members of the staff devoted themselves to preparing
“Program Development Plans” for an operational MIDAS requested by the Air Force.®

If some officials at ARPA and others in the office of the Director of Defense Research and
Engineering (DDR&E) needed to be persuaded that MIDAS would work, by 1959 the enthusiasm
for MIDAS of many Air Force officials needed to be restrained. Contemporary Soviet space
triumphs and erroneous intelligence estimates that posited a “missile gap” in favor of the Russians
had heightened fears of an ICBM surprise attack on the United States. On 9 February 1959
Headquarters USAF issued an amendment to General Operational Requirement 80 that called for a
date of “operational availability” for MIDAS “not later than CY 1962.” On 12 February Air Force
Under Secretary Malcomb A. MacIntyre wrote Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy affirming that
the service judged MIDAS to be a program of the highest priority, that its development was most
urgent, and he requested additional funds to accelerate the effort. Key members of the U.S.-
Canadian North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) and the Continental Air Defense
Command (CONAD) also argued that MIDAS should be pressed into operational service at the
earliest opportunity. Among them, Brigadier General Arthur J. Pierce, Director of NORAD Plans
and Requirements, in a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asserted that the ballistic missile early
warning radar system (BMEWS) then abuilding in the far north would furnish insufficient advance

notice. Under optimum conditions it could provide the nation 15-minutes warning of an ICBM

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Figure 11. The second Air Force MIDAS Program
Director, Col (later Brig Gen)Lewis S. Norman, Jr.
(1962-63),

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concluded at Vandenberg AFB for the launch

of the second Series II spacecraft. John
Solvason, Marvin Boatright, and their Air
Force counterpart, Colonel Lewis S.
Norman, Jr., checked and. rechecked every
important detail. Then they waited, hoping
that the number seven might also portend
some luck.

On 9 May 1963 MIDAS 7 ascended
from Vandenberg AFB and successfully
achieved its planned, circular polar orbit at

2000 nm. Moreover, much to the excitement,

relief and pleasure of all concerned, the

spacecraft performed all but flawlessly for thé next six weeks.” During this period MIDAS 7

detected all of the ballistic missiles launched within its field of view and relayed the data to a

control center in Sunnyvale, California. These missiles included not only three liquid propellant

Atlas and Titan ICBMs, but off-line tapes also revealed detection of seven lower radiance solid-

propellant Minuteman and Polaris missiles. The Aerojet Series IM payload achieved an operating

radiance level sensitivity, with signal-to-noise, of 50 kw/STR, far better than anything the Ruina

Group had supposed possible. MIDAS technology was undeniably demonstrated, payload

performance markedly exceeded expectations in the detection of solid-propellant rockets, and,

“At which time it powered down as seasonal changes reduced the sunlight intercepted on

‘its fixed direction solar arrays.

21


July 1988



spacecraft and payload. On
26 February he watched the
Atlas booster engines ignite
and lift the ensemble
skyward until the engine
flames could hardly be seen.
But improper separation of
the Agena second stage
caused it to collide with the
first stage Atlas, and the
debris rained into the South
Atlantic Ocean.

That evening the
Orlando Herald headlined:
“Spy in the Sky, Asleep in
the Deep.” Knopow never

forgot it. Three months

Figure 3. On a tour of Cape Canaveral, President Dwight D. Eisenhower,

accompanied by Secretary of Defense Thomas Gates, Maj General Donald

Yates (at Eisenhower’s left), and others, visited MIDAS 1 on 10 February
1960 as the vehicle was being prepared for launch.

later, on 26 May 1960, the second and last of the Series I MIDAS test flights rode successfully into

a low inclination 260 nm orbit atop another Atlas, but the satellite tumbled as it circled the Earth

and, after the first dozen orbits, the Agena communication link failed. The payload could not be

operated as planned." No Test,” At least that was the polite term engineers liked to use in these

“The Aerojet payload did operate well even though tumbling, and it observed
backgrounds and the infrared energy of a star, presumed to be Betelgeuse.

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projected an operational system in the early 1960s in Phase IIL.” At the beginning of 1960, however,
the first two MIDAS test and evaluation satellites were just being readied for launch at Cape
Canaveral, Florida.

Trial and Tribulation

Although ARPA officials had briefly considered launching MIDAS satellites atop a Thor
booster, the weight of the Agena A liquid-propellant upper-stage booster-satellite and its Aerojet
infrared payload precluded that option. A modified Atlas ICBM would comprise the first stage and,
indeed, it was employed on all Lockheed MIDAS flights in the 1960s.

At Aerojet, Marvin D. Boatright and Alfred H. Gale served as Knopow and Solvason’s
counterparts, and worked closely with William A. Hubbard, a physicist in the firm who conducted
the payload system calculations throughout the early MIDAS era. The Aerojet payload built for the
first two low-altitude test demonstration flights” consisted of a Bouwers-concentric telescope and
27 lead sulphide detectors. Mounted in a fork beneath the spin table, the telescope elevation could

be adjusted on command. The spin table would rotate 360 degrees at two rpm about the vertical

axis of the satellite in a nose-down attitude. A
comparable spin table would also be used on
all Lockheed MIDAS filights.'°

These initial test flights were to be
launched into low altitude, near-equatorial

orbits from Cape Canaveral, Florida. At the

Cape in February 1960, Joe Knopow oversaw

the final checkout of the first MIDAS Figure 2. MIDAS Series I Infrared Sensor Payload.

. Programmed for low inclination orbits at 260-nm altitude.

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the three, the Air Force on 23 August" selected TRW and Lockheed to present and negotiated their
proposals, proceedings that concluded in late October. Aerojet, the infrared payload contractor, had
teamed with TRW, while Lockheed had teamed for its payload with Baird-Atomic, Incorporated.
The selection turned primarily on the integrated payload/spacecraft designs. Lockheed’s proposal
offered an improved version of the existing MIDAS, an Agena spacecraft stabilized on three axes in
a nose-down attitude. The Baird-Atomic payload, mounted on a spin table and rotated at six rpm,
would furnish the desired scanning to fulfill the specified missions. The TRW proposal, on the
other hand, tumed Lockheed’s approach completely around. It too offered a cylindrical satellite in a
nose-down attitude, but with the Aerojet infrared sensor rigidly attached to the forward end of the
satellite and canted at 45 degrees from the longitudinal axis. Scanning would be achieved by
spinning’ the entire vehicle at six rpm, using a novel “zero momentum” control system that
employed a reaction wheel and gas jets. This approach eliminated the Lockheed spin table’s
rotating joint and the slip rings carrying power and data to and from the payload—features
considered of dubious reliability at orbital lifetimes greater than one year. Withal, it was a relatively
simple albeit elegant solution. And it won. The Air Force notified the contractors of TRW’s
selection on 15 December 1966, shortly after the launch of the last of three MIDAS RTS-1
satellites.

Word of the award was sour news for Daniel Gribbon, Willis Hawkins, and other Lockheed
officials who had steadfastly believed in the technical feasibility of MIDAS and nurtured the

program in good times and bad over 10 trying years. It was especially so for the program manager,

“A few days earlier on 20 August, John S. Foster, DDR&E, approved the DSP
development plan that called for three R&D satellites and the expanded mission objectives, thus
permitting the selection of contractors to proceed. (Rpt, Gerald T. Cantwell, The Air Force in
Space, Fiscal Year 1968, Part I, Office of Air Force History, October 1970, p. 1).

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become known as the Defense Support Program (DSP),” and issued for it a “preliminary” technical
development plan “

As 1966 commenced, John S. Foster, who had succeeded Harold Brown as the Defense
Department’s chief scientist in October 1965," agreed that missile strike reporting would be a major
objective of the DSP. On 12 January 1966 Headquarters USAF defined this capability: determining
that a missile, launched against an enemy, had successfully penetrated defenses and detonated in the
vicinity of the intended target. A few months later, this objective logically was expanded to include
Attack Assessment, defined as the “detection and location of nuclear bursts directed against U.S.
territory.”" When requests for proposals for the DSP ‘were reissued to the three aerospace
contractors in April 1966,” the program’s objectives had expanded markedly. They now embraced
global early warning (which included detecting all types of ballistic missiles), launch point
determination, detection of “nth country” launches, collection of intelligence data such as thé
staging and radiance levels of different missiles, and missile strike reporting, attack assessment, and
nuclear test ban monitoring (Earth and space). These objectives were to be achieved by one or more
DSP satellites operating in geosynchronous orbit, each with 15-month MTTF lifetimes. Although
the program remained a research and development effort with the expanded mission to be achieved
in the 1970s, it nonetheless presented a challenging order for the contractors."

Hughes, TRW, and Lockheed submitted their proposals for the DSP in late June 1966. Of

“Both MIDAS and its follow-on DSP sported various numerical designations over time
with the express purpose of disguising the effort and confusing outside observers. Thus, MIDAS
also was called Program 239A, with the last three RTS flights identified as Program 461, in the
mid-1960s, while DSP was known variously as Program 266, 949, and 627 later in that decade.
To avoid this confusion, and because it refers specifically to the primary mission of detecting
missiles, the name MIDAS has been applied throughout this history of the pre-DSP period.

‘Harold Brown became Secretary of the Air Force on 1 October 1965.

27


upon to explain program details and infrared theory to government visitors in California and on
trips he made to Washington. Since ARPA controlled the Subsystem G budget instead of the Air
Force, he had no alternative but to comply. By mid-1958 aerial test flights had measured
background radiation, and Lockheed settled on operating in the 2.7- and 4.3-micron regions of the
spectrum. These regions were usually avoided for infrared scanning in Earth-bound applications
because of water vapor absorption. Lockheed planned to operate Earth-orbiting infrared payloads
in the very same narrow parts of the spectrum to take advantage of the filtering effect that water
vapor provided against background radiation. Still; the doubters persisted. Years later Knopow
recalled:

We made measurements from balloons. We made measurements from airplanes.
We made measurements from the U-2. We made measurements of all kinds, and
analyses, and were usually successful when we gave a briefing to [officials] from
Washington. They agreed that by using the spectral characteristics and the spatial
characteristics of the background elements such as clouds and water, we could
detect an ICBM in the presence of clouds. But when they went back home . . . they
would .. . see all those bright clouds, . . . and by the time they arrived in
Washington, after 2,500 miles of looking at that stuff, they got unconvinced and we
had to go back to Washington and convince them again. And then we left them and
by the time they came back to see us again it was a very difficult job getting them to
believe that you could really see a missile launch in the presence of cloud
backgrounds.

The doubting Thomas’ notwithstanding, by mid-1958 Knopow had convinced a majority of
WS-117L program officials of the theoretical feasibility of the ICBM attack alarm system, and
begun the fabrication of experimental payloads. Bespeaking these achievements, on 17 September
the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in Inglewood recommended accelerating the effort, and on
15 November 1958 ARPA issued Order No. 38-59. That order separated the infrared detection and
surveillance system from the basic WS-117L (SAMOS) program and established it as an
independent satellite program identified as the Missile Defense Alarm System (MIDAS). The

formal recognition brought to Knopow the title Program Manager and a deputy: John C. Solvason.

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on the surface of the focal-
plane assembly contained
184 lead sulphide detectors
arranged in eight vertical
columns of 23 detectors
each, which provided
complete vertical coverage
of a 24-degree 58-minute
field of view. The 2.7-
micron system provided
both spectral and spatial
background rejection, and
emphasized boost phase

detection of missiles in the

Figure 8. MIDAS 6 Agena B prepared for stacking atop the Atlas booster ‘Atlas class.” The telescope

(in background), at Point Arguello Launch Complex 1-2, VAFB, November . .
rotated on its spin table at 6

rpm, like its Baird-Atomic predecessor.”

Figure 9. Installation of the MIDAS 6 Series III
Infrared Sensor Payload atop the Agena B at PALC
1-2, November 1962 (note the spin table interface),

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25. Hall, Program 46] Historical Monograph, p. 2-43; and pp. 4-13 and 4-14.

26. Ibid., p. 2-47.

27. Ltr , Mr. Joseph J. Knopow to Major Barkley G. Sprague, USAF, Air University, 18 December
1984, p. 1; Knopow interview, p. viii.

28. Memo, Harold Brown, DDR&E, to Brockway McMillan, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force
(R&D), "MIDAS System," 25 June 1962; and Memo, Brockway McMillan, DDR&E, to General
Curtis E, LeMay, CSAF, "Midas Program," 12 July 1962.

29.Rpt, Marvin D. Boatright, “DSP—The Critical Years,” Aerojet ElectroSystems Co., 24
November 1987, p. 2; Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, pp. 3-20 and 3-21.

30. Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-47.

31. U.S. Congress, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1964, Hearings before a
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Eighty-Eighth
Congress, First Session, Part 6 (Monday, May 6, 1963), p. 23.

32. Boatright, “DSP—The Critical Years,” p. 3; Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-58.

33. Hall; Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-58; Rpt Gerald Cantwell, The Air Force in
Space Fiscal Year 1964, USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, June 1967, p. 52.

34, Cantwell, The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1964, pp. 54-55; Hall, Program 461 Historical
Monograph, p. 2-60.

35. Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-60 and pp. 3-31 and 32.
36. Boatright, “DSP—The Critical Years,” p. 5.
37. Hist, Space Systems Division, July-December 1965, Vol. I, October 1968, p. 36.

38. Rpt, Gerald Cantwell, The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1965, USAF Historical Division
Liaison Office, April 1968, pp. 35-36.

39. Hist, Space Systems Division, January-June 1965, Vol. I, November 1966, p. 29.

40. PTDP, Program 266, 15 Nov 1965, as cited in Hist, Space Systems Division, January-June
1966, Vol. Il, December 1968, pp. 19-21.

41. Ibid., p. 21.

42. Chronology, Atch to Ltr, HQ USAF/RDSC to HQ USAF/RDC, “Program 647 Chronology,” 2

35


September 1970, p. I. NRO Approved For Release
43. HQ USAF/RDDF, System Management Directive, SMD6-81-266(1), 22 June 1966, p. 2.

44. Msg, CSAF to AFSC, 231835Z August 66; Col Victor M. White, Management Summary,
RCS: 13-AFSC-R32, Program 266, 20 Sept and 15 Dec 1966; Ltr , Richard M. Friedman, TRW
Space & Technology Group, to R. Cargill Hall, HQ USAFHRC/RI, 1 Oct 1987, p. 2; Boatright,
"DSP—The Critical Years," p. 6; Hist, Space Systems Division, July-December 1966, Vol I,
September 1968, p. 104.

45. Rpt, Gerald Cantwell, The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1966, USAF Historical Division
Liaison Office, December 1968, p. 15; Hist Space Systems Division, July-December 1966, Vol I,
September 1968, p. 102.

46. Boatright, “DSP—The Critical Years,” p. 6; Hist, Space Systems Division, July-December
1966, Vol I, September 1968, p. 102; Rpt, Jacob Neufeld, The Air Force in Space, 1969-1970,
Office Of Air Force History, July 1972, p. 41.

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effort should be pursued,
Lockheed and Aerojet engineers
set to work on the “research test
series” of three satellites,
identified as RTS-1, under the
guidance of John Solvason and
Marvin Boatright. The upper
stage Agena booster-satellite used
in this instance was the Agena D,
a “standard Agena” that employed.

an improved rocket engine,

Figure 12. RTS-1 Infrared Sensor Payload.

common components tried and
proved in other flight projects, and increased redundant features. Five feet in diameter and 34 feet
long, the cylindrical vehicle closely resembled the Agena B. Power requirements for a six-month
life, however, accounted for a significant physical difference. This Agena carried four solar arrays
positioned for maximum sun intercept in all seasons: two fixed to the aft rack, as before, and two
fixed to the forward rack, just aft of the infrared payload.”

Aerojet, now an Air Force Associate Contractor instead of a subcontractor to Lockheed,
designed an improved infrared payload for the RTS-1 vehicles. It consisted of a Bouwers 8-inch
aperture concentric telescope, improved spectral filters, and 442 lead sulphide detectors. These
detectors, smaller than earlier versions, were compatible with an optical image quality of 30

seconds arc. Because of the increased number of channels, Lockheed and Aerojet introduced a

multiplexer to the payload side of the slip ring, thus reducing substantially the number of

24


often conflicting performance requirements for the second generation operational system, presently
known as the Space-Based Infrared System, or SBIRS. The performance thus demanded of this
planned two-tier IR space system is such that it cannot be designed and built at a reasonable cost
without some compromise in requirements among its civil and military “stakeholders’”—but that is

another history still in the making.

R. Cargill Hall June 1999

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iil


ensuring the reliability of all system components, !* Underscoring Riepe’s redirection, at the
Pentagon the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, Herbert York, approved the launch of
two radiometric payloads to measure more completely the Earth’s background radiation. Launched
aboard Discoverer 19 and Discoverer 21 Agena satellites on 20 December 1960 and 18 February
1961, respectively, these devices transmitted data for one-to-two days and validated previous
projections.'© All of the available scientific evidence seemed to confirm the technical feasibility of
the MIDAS concept. In 1961 one question remained unanswered: could Lockheed and the Air
Force make it work?

At the Lockheed program office in Sunnyvale, California, Knopow and his colleagues
recast MIDAS activity to meet the direction of Col Riepe. Succeeding MIDAS flights were divided
among developmental ones in Series II and Series HI, and prototype flights in Series IV, with each
series consisting of three or four flight vehicles."” In the Air Force major commands and Air Staff
offices, however, enthusiasm for an operational MIDAS was undiminished. If, as projected,
MIDAS could increase the warning of a missile attack from 15-to-30 minutes, it would be a vital
asset to the service and the nation. On 16 January 1961, Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, Jr.,
about to leave office with the Eisenhower Administration, approved an Air Force request to assign
“operational responsibility” for MIDAS. A few weeks later, on 13 February, Headquarters USAF
assigned that responsibility to the Air Defense Command (ADC) and designated it to represent the
service in all dealings with NORAD. Acting quickly, on 15 March ADC submitted another
development plan for an operational MIDAS to Under Secretary of the Air Force Joseph Charyk.
Charyk, who knew well the technical complexity of military spacecraft and of their operation in
space, disapproved. The service, he counseled Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis E. LeMay, had first to

demonstrate conclusively the MIDAS early warning techniques. On 22 June 1961, a few weeks

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Series I payloads. Every 10-seconds the detectors would view approximately 25 million square
nautical miles of the Earth’s surface, allowing as many as nine possible “looks” at an ICBM
between the time it reached 35,000 feet and missile burnout. That number of looks was believed
sufficient to identify the direction of missile travel.”

On 12 July 1961 the Atlas booster carrying MIDAS 3 roared to life at Vandenberg AFB.
The booster ensemble rose slowly and disappeared from view. Air Force and Lockheed program
officials who followed its progress rejoiced on word that the Agena successfully reached ‘a 2,000
nm circular polar orbit. An hour later they despaired. One of the two solar arrays had failed to
deploy properly. Only limited payload data was obtained before a power failure occurred in the
Agena. The mission was over after five orbits.”° Air Force Under Secretary Charyk’s reservations
appeared to be well founded. At least that was what Defense Department leaders in the new
Kennedy Administration soon concluded,

On 29 July 1961, while MIDAS officials on the West Coast sought to determine exactly
what went wrong with MIDAS 3, the newly appointed Director of Defense Research and
Engineering, Harold Brown, briefed Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara on the status of the
program. Formidable technical problems remained, Brown declared, though he thought them
solvable in time. The MIDAS satellite system would provide only 5-to-20 minutes advance warning
of an attack by liquid-propellant ICBMs, he believed, and its ability to detect land and sea-based
solid-propellant rockets was at best, questionable. Program costs were also formidable: $500
million to complete R&D, another $500 million to complete an operational system, and Brown
estimated annual operating expenses at $100-to-$200 million. Was an extra 5-to-20 minutes of
warning worth the needed expense and effort? Brown advised McNamara that he would form a

special task force to evaluate the program in general, and this question in particular.”?

13


Preface

Written over ten years ago, this history of the Missile Defense Alarm System, or MIDAS as
the program generally was known, remained classified and for the most part confined to a file
drawer. After a security and policy review, late in 1998 Lt Gen Eugene L. Tattini, Commander of
the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, declassified MIDAS, an action that liberated its
history to be shared with a much wider audience. This history compasses the origin and early years
of space-based infrared (IR) sensors employed to detect the launch of ballistic missiles and, in time,
the flash of ordnance detonated on Earth and in the atmosphere. It addresses the people, institutions,
ideas, and machines brought to the task and their relationship to each other over a twelve-year
period at the height of the Cold War, between 1955 and 1967. Beside treating the primary actions
and events, it also attempts to account for the expectations and tensions that existed among the key
participants: aerospace engineers who created the spacecraft and payload, their military superiors
who anxiously sought an operational system, and still others in the Pentagon and Congress who
doubted whether the technology would work, insisted on more research to demonstrate it, or sought
to cancel the program after six ignominious flight failures.

Whatever the technical, financial, and bureaucratic impediments, MIDAS did have the
advantage of focused performance requirements. That is, to counter the threat of a surprise nuclear
attack against the United States, it was conceived and designed primarily to detect the launch of
ballistic missiles and immediately relay early warning of them to American military and civilian
authorities. As you will see, the performance requirements imposed on the satellites of its
operational successor, the Defense Support Program (DSP), expanded to match the extraordinary
capability for IR detection that MIDAS had demonstrated. Bespeaking that 1960s success, the

operators and users of DSP, among other satellite systems, recently submitted an array of imposing,

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7. GOR, HQ USAF/DRQ, GOR No. 80-3A, (Amendment to GOR No. 80-3, 26 September 1958),
Part VII, Operational Availability, 9 February 1959; MacIntyre letter cited in "MIDAS
Chronology," Space Division document, n.d., p. 3; Pierce letter cited in Hall, Program 461
Historical Monograph, p. 2-5.

8. Knopow interview, pp. 53-54.

9. Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, pp. 2-10 through 2-40.

10. Ibid., pp. 3-2 through 3-36.

11. Knopow interview, pp. 56-57.

12. Ibid., p. 57.

13. Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-21.

14. Rpt, Evaluation of Technical Feasibility of Infrared Missile Defense Alarm from Satellite
Vehicles: Report of the Ad Hoc Technical Advisory Board to the Advanced Research Projects
Agency, 26 February 1959, as cited in Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, pp. 2-18 and 2-
19.

15. Ltr, Lt Col Quentin A. Riepe, AFBMD, to D. J. Gribbon, Director of Satellite Systems, LMSD,
18 August 1960, as cited in Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-29.

16. Rpt, Carl Berger, The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1961, USAF Historical Division Liaison
Office, April 1966, p. 72.

17. Ibid., p. 46.

18. Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-31.

19. Ibid., pp. 2-35 and 3-17.

20. Berger, The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1961, p. 48.

21. Rpt, Carl Berger, The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1962, USAF Historical Division Liaison
Office, June 1966, p. 72:

22. Ibid., p. 73; Hall, Program 461 Historical Monograph, p. 2-36.

23. Rpt, Evaluation of the MIDAS R&D Program, DDR&E Ad Hoc Group on MIDAS, 30
November 1961, passim; Berger, The Air Force in Space, Fiscal Year 1962, pp. 75-76.

24. Memo, Harold Brown, DDR&E, to Eugene Zuckert, SAF, "MIDAS," w/a, 8 December 1961.

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despite the pronouncements of Ralph Zirkind and others, background radiation posed no serious
problems—false target alarms were negligible. The Lockheed-Aerojet missile detection satellite
was fully vindicated.”

MIDAS had succeeded on its seventh flight in 1963—and succeeded beyond the

expectations of even its most ardent proponents. Along the way to that success, program
participants had contended with a succession of panels and committees that assayed the program’s
prospects and progress. As opinions changed at the Pentagon, they had been directed to reorient the
program. first one way and then another. And they had shouldered the public criticism, even
excoriation, of Defense Department officials and members of Congress. Unbeknownst to virtually
every one of them, they also had bested the record of the CORONA Program by half! CORONA, a
covert satellite reconnaissance effort that’masqueraded publicly as the DISCOVERER biomedical
research program, did not retrieve a film canister from orbit successfully until flight 14.
, The last two of the Series I MIDAS flights followed in quick succession. MIDAS 8,
launched on 12 June 1963 failed again when the Atlas booster malfunctioned during ascent.
MIDAS 9, launched a few weeks later on 18 July, achieved the desired 2000 nm orbit, but one of
the two Agena solar arrays did not extend. The infrared payload, nevertheless, operated successfully
for 96 orbits and detected one American missile launched within its field of view, as well as Soviet
missile launch activity, before a power failure terminated the mission.

In the Defense Department, the unexpected, unqualified success of the satellite Missile
Defense Alarm system would rekindle debate and provoke further studies of the program over the
next three years. Although three more 2000 nm altitude MIDAS vehicles subsequently would be
approved and flown in 1966, the flight of MIDAS 9 rang down the curtain on the original program.

American military leaders who evaluated its technical prospects now began to consider orbital

22


UG 743
H3
198%

MISSILE DEFENSE ALARM:

THE GENESIS OF SPACE-BASED INFRARED EARLY WARNING

R. CARGILL HALL

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July 1988

HL

5000 00058 O



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variety of technical difficulties and a one-month strike of employees at Aerojet’s plant in Azusa,

’ California, where the payload was fabricated.) Lockheed’s Agena D booster-satellite by 1966 had

become one of the most trusted and reliable upper stage rockets used in America’s military and
civilian space programs, best known perhaps as the target vehicle in the Gemini manned missions
of the day. On 9 June, however, the Agena’s Bell rocket engine failed to ignite for its second burn
and, instead of a 2000 nm circular polar orbit, the satellite remained in a highly elliptical parking
orbit with a perigee of 108 nm and an apogee of 2,246 nm. Worse, the Agena tumbled and its
attitude control gas quickly exhausted. No useful tests of the infrared payload could be performed,
and a few months later, on 3 December 1966, the satellite dipped into the Earth’s lower atmosphere
over Australia and incinerated.”®

Launch of the last two MIDAS satellites followed rapidly. The second and third RTS-1
vehicles rose from Vandenberg AFB on 19 August and 5 October 1966, achieved the intended
circular polar orbits, and operated successfully for 11 and 12 months, respectively, easily exceeding
the six-month MTTF lifetime planned for them. During this period these two spacecraft also
detected all Soviet and U.S. ballistic missiles launched within their field of view—139 rocket
launches—and identified four Soviet launch sites. This accomplishment was secured in the face of
global cloud cover once thought to preclude space-borne missile defense alarm. By late 1967
America’s leaders could acknowledge the program to be a national resource. One can only
speculate what effects these spectacular flight test results might have had if the follow-on contract
selection had occurred one year later. “At this juncture,” Marvin Boatright, Aerojet’s MIDAS
program manager frankly confided, “it would have been possible to have configured an operational
deployment” (using the Lockheed/Aerojet system).*® Whatever the “would have beens,” at the end

of 1966 TRW and Aerojet were the contractors of record for the follow-on DSP.

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mechanical crossings of the spin table. Two star sensors were also added to improve attitude
information. As before, the payload rotated on its spin table at 6 rpm, and had a maximum slant
range of 4200 miles at 2000 nm altitude. Plans called for launch of the three RTS-1 vehicles in late
1965 and early 1966.°°

Air Force leaders, in the meantime, had lost none of their zeal for an operational MIDAS,
and on 28 January 1964 Headquarters USAF issued Specific Operational Requirement No. 209 for
just such a system. A few months later, on 15 May, the Space Systems Division in Inglewood
released the development plan for the follow-on program, tentatively identified as RTS-2. This
series of three flights would develop and demonstrate the technology needed in the 1970s for an
operational system. That system was to be capable of worldwide surveillance directed toward
detecting and warning of missile attack.”’ Yet another Air Force plan called for three more MIDAS
detection test series (DTS) satellites to be built and launched in the late 1960s, before RTS-2
became available. That plan was axed in November 1964 during Defense Department FY 1966
budget deliberations.*®

At the beginning of 1965 Air Force leaders, with the concurrence of the Director of Defense
Research and Engineering, decided in favor of open contracting for the RTS-2 follow-on MIDAS
program. Instead of consigning the enterprise to the existing spacecraft contractor, Lockheed
Missiles & Space Company, it would be awarded through competitive procurement. This approach,
its authors reasoned, would encourage new technical solutions to the problems of improved infrared
detection and surveillance, and at the same time meet expressed Congressional sentiments that
discouraged any automatic extension of the Lockheed MIDAS contracts. The Sunnyvale firm was
by no means excluded, but it would have to compete to stay in the missile early warning business.

On 1 March 1965 Space Systems Division issued a Request for Proposal for an RTS-2

25


situations. Whatever it might be called, MIDAS remained undémonstrated for missile warning, and

new voices in the Defense Department began to question the reliability of the MIDAS satellite as

well as the feasibility of its infrared applications, In the Lockheed program office, Joe Knopow felt

Figure 4. MIDAS 1 lifting from Launch Complex 14, Cape Canaveral,
on 26 February 1960.

the pressure.”

The program had
proceeded thus far in part
because panels of
independent scientists had
verified the Lockheed and
Aerojet analyses of the
space-based infrared
applications: An ARPA
board” back in February
1959 judged _— missile
detection and alarm to be a
straightforward method
“based on a few physical
laws and one that cannot
readily be circumvented.”

Though more information

was needed “on background characteristics and the technical complexities of necessary

“Composed of Carl Overhage, MIT; Sidney Passman, The RAND Corporation; Edward
M. Purcell, Harvard University; and Chalmers W. Sherwin, University of Hlinois.

NRO Approved For Release,


before the launch of MIDAS 3, LeMay, agreed.®

In late June and early July 1961 final preparations for the launch of MIDAS 3, the first of

three test vehicles in Series If to be launched into polar orbit, took place at the Point Arguello

Launch Complex, Vandenberg AFB, California. MIDAS 3 consisted of an Agena B, a larger, new

model booster-satellite. Five feet in diameter and 30 feet long, it was nearly twice the length of its

Agena A predecessor. The increased tankage and a new “dual-burn” rocket engine would permit

reaching.a planned circular polar orbit at an altitude of 2,000 nm, the orbit then considered most

appropriate for an operational constellation of MIDAS satellites. Power was to-be furnished by two

solar arrays fixed to the aft
equipment rack so as to maximize
sunlight intercept, coupled to
storage batteries, instead of the
batteries alone used on the first two
missions.

This vehicle and its Series II
companions carried a new infrared
payload built by Baird-Atomic, one
that featured 175 detectors capable
of sensing ICBM targets at a
maximum slant range of 4200 nm.
The payload was designed to scan
at a rate of six rpm, a rate of

rotation three times faster than the

NRO Approved For Release

Figure 6. Joe Knopow, at right, examines a
model of a MIDAS Agena B Series II Satellite
with John Solvason, c. 1960.

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