The RAMOS (Russian-American Observation Satellites) program was a cooperative project between the US and Russian Federation. Sponsored by BMDO (Ballistic Missile Defense Organization which was renamed the Missile Defense Agency or MDA in 2002), the program originated in 1992 as a means of fostering cooperation between the military establishments of the former Cold War adversaries.
While the political objective of the RAMOS program was to engage Russia in a cooperative defense-related space program, the primary technical objective was to conduct joint research and development on new approaches to improve space-based early warning capabilities especially enhancing the ability to detect dim targets and reduce false alarms. Secondary technical objectives included performing observations of a more environmental nature in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the program beyond defense interests.
The PDR (Preliminary Design Review) for the American instrument payload was successfully completed in May 2002 followed by the joint PDR with the program’s Russian partners for the space and ground segments in June 2003. While work was progressing towards CDR (Critical Design Review) with a launch planned by 2009, the RAMOS program was cancelled in 2004 by MDA.
In the following sections, the RAMOS science objectives and experiments are outlined followed by a description of the pair of spacecraft and their instruments as designed to meet those objectives. Finally, there is a section describing the joint near-term experiments performed by the American and Russian RAMOS teams between 1995 and 1999 in support of the program involving existing spacecraft and aircraft.
