Aegis at White Sands

[Yeknom-Ecaps]

From Boeing news release:

In a successful first test of its advanced fire control system, Lockheed Martin’s [NYSE: LMT] Aegis Open Architecture Weapon System recently performed a successful missile firing from the U.S. Navy’s “USS Desert Ship” at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR).

This was the first test of upgrades to both the Aegis Fire Control System and the MK 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) installed on the USS Desert Ship, the Navy’s land-based, live-fire test bed for surface-to-air weapons.  The platform is continually upgraded to meet the Navy’s live fire testing requirements.
........

First I have ever heard of the "USS Desert Ship." Does anyone know the date the test took place?

Thanks.

[Jim]

"USS Desert Ship" is a joke.  An attempted at humor

[Yeknom-Ecaps]

From WSMR web site describing Tartar missile:

..... Testing of this supersonic missile took place at the U.S.S. Desert Ship located at Launch Complex 35 at White Sands. .......

so it is real.

[Yeknom-Ecaps]

From Astronautix web site on WSMR:

..... The LLS-1 USS Desert Ship is used to test naval surface weapon systems. ......



http://www.astronautix.com/sites/whisands.htm

[Jim]

Never said it wasn't real.    It is a simulated ship.

And it was a weapon test and not a spaceflight launch

[jimvela]

Jim - 31/1/2008  5:44 PM

Never said it wasn't real.    It is a simulated ship.

And it was a weapon test and not a spaceflight launch

It is indeed real.  A full warship, it is not.

Further, due to various bureaucratic snafus, I hear that there have even been humorous mis-steps.  

For example, the delivery of an upgraded propeller set to this "warship".  

The only relevance I can see to spaceflight is that similar silly logistics snafus happen far more regularly than anyone would like to admit.

[Yeknom-Ecaps]

Don't the Aegis missiles reach space to "kill" the incoming missile? I thought I read that in the last article on the Aegis test near Hawaii.

Are there any space applications for the VLS? Do submarines use this technology? Like the attempt to launch the Planetary Society Cosmos 1 Solar Sail using a "converted" Russian missile a few years ago.

[Jim]

Yeknom-Ecaps - 31/1/2008  9:09 PM

1.  Don't the Aegis missiles reach space to "kill" the incoming missile? I thought I read that in the last article on the Aegis test near Hawaii.

Are there any space applications for the VLS? Do submarines use this technology? Like the attempt to launch the Planetary Society Cosmos 1 Solar Sail using a "converted" Russian missile a few years ago.

1.  Doesn't mean it is a space launch

2.  VLS is for small missiles.   submarines have bigger launch tubes and the missile is ejected before it is ignited

The older Russian submarine missile were elevated out of their tubes before launching

[jcm]

Jim - 31/1/2008  9:15 PM

Yeknom-Ecaps - 31/1/2008  9:09 PM

1.  Don't the Aegis missiles reach space to "kill" the incoming missile? I thought I read that in the last article on the Aegis test near Hawaii.
  .

1.  Doesn't mean it is a space launch

 

Err... yes it does. It doesn't mean it's an ORBITAL launch, and many people in the orbital launch business
think that 'space launch' means 'orbital launch', but that doesn't make them right.

To be a bit more fair, within the US aerospace industry and particularly the US military, 'Space Launch'
is a term used as an organizational distinction from 'ballistic missile launch' and in that context almost always means just orbital; but outside of that context (i.e. not in the US or not in the aerospace-military complex) if it is a launch that goes into space, then it is a space launch.

By that criterion and for reasonable definitions of space (and reasonable people can disagree whether
the boundary is at 80 or 100 km), the typical Aegis launches are space launches, with an apogee of about 150 km. However, I suspect that the limited range available at White Sands, and the fact that this test doesn't really require an exoatmospheric trajectory, means that this particular flight was probably
lower apogee.

  - Jonathan

[Jim]

Sounding rockets are space launches.  

ICBM launches are not space launches.

Space launches are not defined a short passage thru it

aerospace-military complex would included everything US

[jcm]

Jim - 31/1/2008  9:53 PM

Sounding rockets are space launches.  

ICBM launches are not space launches.

Space launches are not defined (sic) a short passage thru it

Well, I disagree. The question is, who gets to define the phrase 'space launch'? My biased answer,
ultimately those who write dictionaries, and effectively, those who write the history
books (hi there). Or indeed, those who write the web pages you end up at if you ask the question 'what's the list of all space launches?' (oops, hi again).

As an academic who's studied the history of both US and non-US space and rocket activities, I have
seen the concept of 'space launch' applied with a broad range of meanings over the past 65 years worth of space related literature since the first A-4 (V-2) launch. The sense you like is certainly one sense of the phrase, but the broader sense is also in use and is perfectly legitimate use of English: a launch  that goes into space may reasonably be called a space launch, even if those who work at the Cape and Vandenberg don't  ever use it in that broader sense. I've certainly seen sounding rocket guys refer to their launches as space launches. Missile folks may not regard the launches they do as space launches, but that doesn't make them right from my point of view as someone who tries to address the question from an academic POV. The Soviets at one point considered their missile launches to be space launches, for example, and it makes no sense to say that Soviet ICBMs were space launches and ours weren't... and in the late 1950s,
there were certainly people from Huntsville and the Cape who sometimes referred to missile launches as being space launches.

aerospace-military complex would included (sic) everything US

no, there are many speakers of English in the US not included there, and some of them talk and write about space. Some of them (university space scientists, hi there again) even participate in space related activities, although that's not necessarily important.

I believe:
space launch, n: (1) Launch of a vehicle into space, usually by means of a rocket. (2) (Aer./Mil.) Launch of a rocket carrying an orbital satellite payload or (more rarely) a suborbital scientific payload, as opposed to a military ballistic missile launch.
It just depends on the context, and I think the original poster's usage was fine in the context of this (international, wide-audience) site, just as it would be wrong in an AF/contractor interface meeting at Vandenberg.

Sorry, I'm in an annoyingly pedantic mood today.
- Jonathan

[Jim]

Thanks for the response.  I would agree with you in the broad sense

[Yeknom-Ecaps]

For info on USS Desert Ship and some photos:

http://www.mediacen.navy.mil/pubs/allhands/jun01/pg26.htm