Defense: Space Hits and Misses

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The beleaguered U.S. space community enjoyed a boost to its morale last week. First a weather satellite was launched without a hitch atop a refurbished 25- year-old Atlas-E rocket. Then an MX Peacekeeper test missile, lofted into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base, neatly deployed its six dummy warheads 4,200 miles downrange in the southern Pacific, the 14th straight success for the program.

More important, there were unexpected Soviet failures to gloat over. An SS-N-8 missile, launched two weeks ago from a submarine in the Barents Sea and aimed at the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Siberia, went astray and, in an obvious malfunctioning of both its guidance and selfdestruct systems, landed more than 1,500 miles off course, most probably in northeastern China. The Soviets insisted the missile had landed in their own territory.

Then the Pentagon confirmed that last month, for the second time since April, a new SS-18, the mainstay of the Soviet strategic forces, exploded after a test launching, apparently because of a problem in the rocket's fuel system. No one suggested there was a major flaw in the SS-18 program. Nonetheless, U.S. observers emphasized the strategic importance of the missile to the Soviets, citing what former U.S. National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft called its silo-busting capabilities.