ADA museum gets Patriot missile launcher

FORT SILL, Okla. -- The Fort Sill Air Defense Artillery (ADA) Museum received a prototype Patriot missile launcher labeled XM901 during a ceremony May 11. The exhibit will represent a major era in American air defense and serve as a teaching tool not only for the equipment but also the ADA Soldiers here.

Eventually it will be moved to the proposed ADA Training Support Facility that will be next to the Field Artillery Museum just inside Fort Sill's Key Gate. Construction of the training facility is scheduled to start in 2017 and be completed in 18 months.

"The intent here is to have a complete training storyline in the 40,000-square-foot training support facility," said Jonathan Bernstein, director of the Air Defense Artillery Museum.

The experimental Patriot missile launcher XM901 has been a test bed for its entire career, Bernstein said.

"The unit was built in 1982 by Martin Marietta in Orlando, Florida and was the first unit that vaulted us into an anti-tactical ballistic missile capability," said Col. John Eggert, project manager for the Patriot at the Army Acquisition Support Center in Huntsville, Ala. "The Patriot missile system was developed to be an accomplished air-breathing threat killer against fixed wing and rotary-wing aircraft."

"We also need to pay tribute to the thousands of people that actually worked on this particular piece of equipment from the engineers, to the PhD scientist, to the lowest ranking technicians that worked diligently on this system to get the Patriot launcher to where it is today," said Eggert.

In 2009 it was transferred to Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania were it sat in storage and was only pulled out for regression testing when needed.

"The Patriot missile system is very instrumental in military defense, Eggert added. "Our international partners that have the Patriot launcher are increasing the capability of the Patriot system that they have. It really is an unparalleled level of missile defense for not only our Soldiers but also our international soldiers. It is the number one lower tier air defense system in the world today and we expect the Patriot to be the military inventory for the next 30 years."

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Don Hendricks, Training and Doctrine Command capability manager office at Fort Sill said, "It's the only battle-tested defense against tactical ballistic missiles in the world. The fact that 15 countries are still using it and that there are still potential upgrades for it speaks to the success of the program."