30th Anniversary Milestone: First DSP satellite, I MEWS 1, launched aboard a Titan IIIC missile

11/6/2012 - Peterson AFB, Colo.  -- Air Force Space Command is celebrating its 30th Anniversary! Here is a significant milestone from the command's history ...

Following the end of the MIDAS program, plans to deploy an operational system led to the Integrated Missile Early Warning Satellite program, or IMEWS. Unlike MIDAS, which was designed to use large numbers of satellites in low Earth orbit, IMEWS consisted of a smaller number of satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

On November 6, 1970, the U.S. Air Force launched a classified satellite on a Titan IIIC rocket from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. This was the first of many DSP satellites to be launched over the next 30 years.