Project Nike
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Project Nike was a U.S. Army project proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. By 1953 the project delivered the United States' first operation
Nike missile family and other missiles on display at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. From left, Nike Hercules, MIM-23 Hawk (front), MGM-29 Sergeant (back), LIM-49 Spartan, MGM-31 Pershing, MGM-18 Lacrosse, MIM-3 Nike Ajax, ENTAC (foreground)
Nike Ajax located in Marion, Kentucky
A Nike Ajax missile
Nike site SF-88L missile control
Nike-X
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Nike-X was an anti-ballistic missile system designed in the 1960s by the United States Army to protect major cities in the United States from attacks by the Soviet Union's intercontinental ballistic m
The Sprint missile was the main weapon in the Nike-X system, intercepting enemy ICBM warheads only seconds before they exploded.
The Nike missile family included Ajax (front), Hercules (middle), and Zeus (rear).
The Zeus system required two separate radars for each missile it launched, with extras for redundancy and others for early detection and discrimination.
For even higher performance, the Hardsite concept replaced Sprint with HiBEX, which could accelerate at up to 400 g.