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Show Utah-A Proving Ground SALT LAKE TRIBUNE 29 Oct 63 Missile Tests Under Way To White Sands Range For a period of 18 months Athena missiles will scream over southeastern Utah from Green River to the White Sands, N. Mex., impact area, 417 nautical miles away. During the year and a half period 77 launchings of this test vehicle are scheduled from the desert area spreading out from the1 little town that has lived sleepily on the Green River for close to a century. Facility Constructed In order to make these test The Air Force's advanced ballistic re-entry systems program is intended to develop an understanding of re-entry phenomena and establish the military worth and feasibility of advShced reentry concepts. To achieve this objective, a large number of flight tests systematically investigating re-entry phenomena and the inter-action of various types of re-entry vehicles with reentry environments are required. The Athena program was conceived to reduce costs of such systematic inve s t i g a t i 6 n s through the use of a test vehicle especially configured to reproduce ICBM trajectory dynamics at re-entry for scale model re-entry vehicles and to allow development testing of full-size decoys. BLANDING UTAH - The Army's 185-vehiele Pershing missile system convoy rolled out of the Black Mesa area near Blanding, Utah, Oct. 1 for Fort Wingate Army Depot, N.M., to wind up Pershing's most exten^-siye series to date. Having completed five successful firings at the Utah site to impact points within White Sands Missile Range, the missile system went through similar test exercises at Ft. Win-gate. Traveling the more than 200-mile distance, the ©savey passed through Mo,nticelio, Utah, Cor- tez, Colo., and Shipropk and Gallup, N.M. Also a Road Test The ^completely self-contained" unit fed and fueled itself along the road march, described by Army officials as a test in itself. The march is a check of the system's ability to perform similar road marches under combat conditions. Throughout tha journey, the unit continually checked out its missile, elec-ronic and communications equipment. Moving along the highways, the 400-man unit comprising personnel from the 2nd Missile Battalion, 44th Artillery, and the Army Artillery Board Missile Division, both out of Fort Sill, Okla., traveled in five segments each spaced 40 travel minutes apart. The vehicles in each unit were separated by 100 meters arid traveled 30 to 35 miles an hour. The entire convoy, from the lead vehicle to tail, stretched some 50 miles alomg the highway. Evaluate Performance During the Ft. Wingate operation, the 2nd Missile Battalion fired the missile, and the accompanying personnel from the Artillery Board's Missile Division evaluated Pershing's performance in the hands of the troops. All firings, conducted under simulated tactical conditions, impacted the missile within the White Sands boundaries. |
