Nike Zeus

Nike Zeus was an anti-ballistic missile system developed by the United States Army in the late 1950s and early 1960s, designed to destroy incoming Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile warheads before they reached their targets. It was designed by the Nike team at Bell Labs and was initially based on the earlier Nike Hercules anti-aircraft missile. The original Zeus A model was meant to intercept warheads in the upper atmosphere carrying a 25 kiloton W31 nuclear warhead, but the concept grew during development into the much larger Zeus B, given the tri-service designation XLIM-49 and carrying a 400 kiloton W50 warhead. In several successful tests the Zeus B model proved able to intercept both warheads and satellites. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/