Article Series - Missile Defense 101
- Missile Defense 101: Intro
- Missile Defense 101 – ICBM Fundamentals
- Missile Defense 101 – The Threat
- Missile Defense 101: Sensors (Pt I)
- “To Provide for the Common Defense…”
- More Cold War Secrets Revealed
- Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) Completes Hover Test
- Missile Defense – It’s Not Just for ICBMs
- Iran’s Successful Space Launch
- Observations of a Missile Launch – I
- Missile Defense and FY10 DoD Budget
- Speaking of Ascent Phase Intercept…
- Foreign Ballistic Missiles – Capabilities and Threat Guide
- Say Hello to Ashura
- Required Reading: Naval War College Review Articles on China’s DF-21/ASBM
- BMDR Release and BMD Deployments to the Gulf
- Iran Announces New Space Launch Vehicle (SLV)
- Airborne Laser Testbed Successful in Lethal Intercept Experiment
- Wednesday’s Roll-up of Missile Defense News
- Aegis BMD: “Build a Little, Test a Little, Learn a Lot”
- The Problem With Proliferation: Cruise Missile Edition
- Sea-Based BMD — Another Successful Test
- Flightdeck Friday: A BMD Primer
- The Missiles of Spring: 2012 Edition









“SJS” – Very nice job on the bmd primer brief.
Well Done SJS! The students are still talking about this presentation…hope it will get wider audiences…
The way things are progressing, much wider than I think either of us thought — and thanks again for the opportunity!
w/r, SJS
Actually, you can shut down solid propellant missiles when you want to.
To do this, you need to have thrust termination ports along the missile that open when commanded to; which cause the pressure inside the propellant chamber to fall below that needed to support continued combustion.
Thrust termination ports were in the original design for the Space Shuttle SRBs, but in an attempt to simplify the design and eliminate excess weight, they were deleted in the 1970s; and this has led to the idea that solid motors can never ever shut off.