Maneuverable reentry vehicle

The other is to improve accuracy or track moving targets using terminal guidance systems that can act only during the last stages of the flight.

The tri-service Advanced Strategic Missile Systems office was formed to study the problem, and several possibilities were immediately evident.

A similar approach was to use air-launched ballistic missiles, which flew much shorter distances and much lower altitudes.

If the RV maneuvered continually during the time it was within range of the ABM, the guidance system would never calculate a successful interception course.

[1] Work on MARV was carried out continually through the 1960s, but ultimately not put into use on the US ICBM fleet as the signing of the ABM Treaty mooted the need for anything more advanced than MIRV and decoys.

[1] Interest in evading MARV grew in the late 1970s as part of the wider debate on nuclear warfighting policy.

[1] SWERVE started in the 1970s and culminated with a successful flight test in 1985, which demonstrated a sophisticated maneuvering reentry vehicle technology[2] and paved the way for the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon program's Alternate Re-Entry System in the early 2010s,[3] which was later developed into the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body hypersonic glide vehicle.

[4] The Advanced Maneuverable Reentry Vehicle (AMaRV) was a prototype MARV built by McDonnell Douglas.

The design was essentially a conical RV with a slice cut off one side to form a flat surface.

It was "difficult to conceive of an endoatmospheric ABM which could defend against AMaRV-type vehicles at reasonable cost.