The downing of an errant U.S. spy satellite Wednesday night was deemed a success for the U.S. military.

But it wasn't a first.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates authorized the launch of a three-stage SM-3 missile from the USS Lake Erie in the Pacific Ocean at 10:26 p.m. Wednesday. The ensuing collision has bolstered the U.S. missile-defense strategy, military experts said.

Like Wednesday's strike, the military's first shootdown of a satellite in the 1980s was just about perfect, said the mission's commander.

"Everything that could go right, did go right," said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Wilbert "Doug" Pearson Jr., a Texas A&M aerospace engineering graduate of 1969.

On Sept. 3, 1985, Pearson launched a 3,000 pound, two-stage missile toward a satellite from his specially equipped F-15 fighter jet.

There were two main challenges that Pearson and his crew had to overcome, he said.

First, their calculations had to be precise enough to guide a missile that was traveling at 13,000 feet per second into a satellite that was traveling at 23,000 feet per second.

"We had a very precise guiding system that could track [the satellite] within inches, but two inches off is a miss and would not have killed it," Pearson said.

The second major challenge was getting the jet at the right place at the right time so the missile would be able to find its target.

"We actually predicted where the satellite was going to be," he said. "I just had the job of ensuring that the missile arrived at a certain point in space at the right time. When the missile got out there and opened its sensor, it had to be looking in the right place or it never would have found the satellite."

• John Braden's e-mail address is john.braden@theeagle.com.

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