Nike (Ajax) - the first operational guided surface-to-air missile (SAM)

At the end of 1953, the United States Army tested Nike (renamed Ajax in 1956) - the first operational guided surface-to-air missile (SAM), in 1954 it entered service.

The first operational missiles were established at Fort Meade to protect Washington D.C., named Nike after the Greek goddess of victory, it is priced at $20.000 a shot and flies at about twice sonic speed. It is guided towards the target by interacting radars and an electronic brain.

Battery of Nikes point snouts at sky ready to fire. Men are checking wiring behind boxlike extension of feet which support firing ramps. Raised mechanically on ramps. Nikes are fired by remote control, get first lift from booster section in lower half below tail. Fins at nose and tail guide missile.

Nike on the move is carried toward launching site on a trailer towed by an Army truck, moving across the desert environs of the proving ground in Red Canyon, N. Mex. This versatile missile, which is 20-feet in length and one foot thick, can also be transproted by airplane when it is necessary.