Troubled Space-Based Infrared Satellite Program Finally Gets Off the Ground

SBIRS-High and SBIRS-Low.

At one time the two missile defense satellite systems were notorious examples of over budget, technologically challenged military space programs.

SBIRS — space-based infrared systems — was conceived in the early 1990s as the next-generation of spacecraft that could not only warn when intercontinental or theater ballistic rockets were being launched, but track them accurately enough to possibly shoot them down with a missile defense system.