Long Range Intercept Experiment LORAINE

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Rosdivan

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Another proposal was to use technology then under development for a maneuvering re-entry vehicle for ballistic missiles. ROTHR defined a series of resolution cells (each quite large); it could only say whether a bomber was or was not in each cell. Normally a cell would be far too large for a missile's active seeker to search, which was why ROTHR was considered a surveillance tool rather than a fire control sensor. However, a sensor on board a missile approaching the bomber stream from above, ie from space, might view the entire resolution cell. It turned out that a ballistic missile, LORAINE, could be fired from a standard veetical launcher cell, and plans called for equipping its manoevering re-entry vehicle with a millimetre-wave radar. The weapon would dive so fast that the bomber would have little chance of escaping. The space aspect of the system would have been the high-capacity link betwee ROTHR and the firing ship. LORAINE was not ready for tests until 1990, by which time the Cold War, and the Outer Air Battle, were both effectively over.
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This is from Seapower and Space, pg 241, by Norman Friedman. Does anyone have more information on this missile? According to the lexicon hosted on FAS.org it was originally known as Ballistic Intercept Missile.
 
Rosdivan said:
Another proposal was to use technology then under development for a maneuvering re-entry vehicle for ballistic missiles. ROTHR defined a series of resolution cells (each quite large); it could only say whether a bomber was or was not in each cell. Normally a cell would be far too large for a missile's active seeker to search, which was why ROTHR was considered a surveillance tool rather than a fire control sensor. However, a sensor on board a missile approaching the bomber stream from above, ie from space, might view the entire resolution cell. It turned out that a ballistic missile, LORAINE, could be fired from a standard veetical launcher cell, and plans called for equipping its manoevering re-entry vehicle with a millimetre-wave radar. The weapon would dive so fast that the bomber would have little chance of escaping. The space aspect of the system would have been the high-capacity link betwee ROTHR and the firing ship. LORAINE was not ready for tests until 1990, by which time the Cold War, and the Outer Air Battle, were both effectively over.
Click to expand...

This is from Seapower and Space, pg 241, by Norman Friedman. Does anyone have more information on this missile? According to the lexicon hosted on FAS.org it was originally known as Ballistic Intercept Missile.
Click to expand...


LORAINE was DARPA's program for the kill vehicle's seeker. It was a small, powerful phased array system designed by Raytheon, and supposedly was very advanced for its time.
 
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA101575

"Ballistic Intercept Missile. A technology base is being developed within the Ballistic Intercept Missile program to provide a capability for long range fleet and CONUS defense. Key technologies under development are the sensor and navigation system for control of the weapon during the end-game kill. Three combined sensor and navigation concepts were identified in FY 1980-FY 1981. Development of these concepts will be carried through detailed design. A single concept will be selected for fabrication and flight test prior to transfer of the technology base to the Air Force."

Apparently funded out the stategic technology program at DARPA during the early 80s, it (probably) transitioned elsewhere. General Research Corporation of Santa Barbara did several studies of the concept under contract to DoD in the early 80s, a FOIA request may unearth them.
 
Also interesting:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel6/8256/25862/01149290.pdf?arnumber=1149290
 
..."Advanced X-Band Intercept Sensor (AXIS), the Global Positioning System (GPS) Guidance Program
(GGP) and the Miniature GPS Receiver (MGR) programs, into a total integrated concept."

..." - Awarded Phase I AXIS contract to Raytheon for an X-band conformal array radar development, acquisition of real world X-band radar clutter data and clutter suppression algorithmn verification. - Established the Integrated Guidance System (IGS). This system is canposed of an AXIS radar, a MGR and high performance fiber optic gyro-based inertial measurementunit (GGP)."
..."Begin the AXIS monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) transmit/receiver (T/R) modules fabrication."
 
Also worth noting that this was not just surface launched from VLS, they also explored air, silo, and TEL launch. Air launch would have been from USAF aircraft.

TEAL CAMEO (Boeing Condor) was also to be a sensor platform used with this system for fleet defense.
 
quellish said:
Also worth noting that this was not just surface launched from VLS, they also explored air, silo, and TEL launch. Air launch would have been from USAF aircraft.

TEAL CAMEO (Boeing Condor) was also to be a sensor platform used with this system for fleet defense.
Click to expand...

Given that BIM was SWERVE based are you revisiting this topic with intent? :)
 

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