Command guided Command guidance is a type of missile guidance in which a ground station or aircraft relay signals to a guided missile via radio ( or possibly through a wire connecting the missile to the launcher ) and tell the missile where to steer in order to intercept its target . Additionally , it is possible to send a command to the missile to detonate , even if the missile itself has a fuze or fuzes . ( It may be possible to detonate the missile and destroy or damage the target , even though the missile was not actually going to strike the target , due to the blast radius of the warhead ) . Typically , the system giving the guidance commands is tracking both the target and the missile or missiles via radar . It determines the position and velocity of the target and the position and velocity of the missile and calculates whether their paths will intersect . If not , the guidance system will relay commands to the missile ( s ) , telling them to move their fins in such a way to steer themselves in the direction necessary for them to end up on an interception course with the target . If the target maneuvers , the guidance system can notice this and update the missiles ' course continuously to counteract the maneuvering . If the missile passes close to the target , either its own proximity or contact fuze will detonate the warhead , or the guidance system can estimate when the missile will pass near the target and send a detonation signal . On some systems there is a dedicated radio antenna or antennas for communicating with the missile ( s ) . On others , the radar itself is actually able to send coded pulses which the missile can pick up and interpret as guidance commands . Sometimes to aid the tracking station , the missile will contain a radio transmitter , making it easier to track . Also , sometimes there is a dedicated radar antenna on the tracking station for tracking the missile as well as one or more for tracking targets . It is especially these types of systems which may be able to communicate with the missile via the same radar energy it uses for tracking it . Examples of missiles which use command guidance include : Note that older western missiles tended to prefer using pure semi - active radar homing . Pure command guidance is not normally used in modern SAM systems since it is too inaccurate during the terminal phase ( when the missile is about to intercept the target ) . This is because the ground - based radars are distant from the target and the returned signal lacks resolution . However , it is still quite practical to use it to guide the missile to a location near the target , and then use another more accurate guidance method to actually intercept the target . Almost any type of terminal guidance can be used , but the most common are semi - active radar homing ( SARH ) or active radar homing . Examples of missiles which use command guidance with terminal SARH include : Examples of missiles which use command guidance with terminal active radar homing include : Track - via - missile is a variation of command guidance , the main difference being that the missile itself sends target tracking information back to the guidance system to aid it in calculating the intercept . This negates much of the accuracy disadvantage of pure command guidance . MCLOS and SACLOS are variations of command guidance .