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The S-500KM 'Asper' is a medium range (by Pact air and space combat standards) missile intended as a mid-range stand off fire and forget missile launched from strikecraft. However its size and weight have seen it pressed into the surface to air, surface to space, point defense, and light ship to ship roles.

A multi-mode weapon system with both passive, active, and mixed sensor operational options its primary system is an actively scanned dual mode phased array radar located in the missiles nose. Capable of both FTL and STL emissions and capable of passively monitoring it is the primary advantage the missile has. This system is backed up by a multi-spectral system and an exotic emissions monitoring system. These powerful sensor tools are combined with a pair of computer processors which consistently cross check the various sensor data feeds, this allows the missile to reject flares and decoys roughly 70 to 80 percent of the time depending on ambient environmental and battlefield conditions.

This section covers the more general information of the Asper MRSAAM missile.

The missile once manufactured is typically stored in a polymer casing until use, generally rectangular and designed to stack with munitions of its type. When opened the missile is revealed which is typically the main hull with the eight fins detached to reduce the missiles overall size in storage. These are attached before the missile is loaded and can be configured into either a folded setup for launch tubes or left hanging free for standard hardpoint use. The primary linkage is covered by a throw away panel and must be uncovered and hard linked into the launch vehicle during installation.

Two computer control chip sets are employed in the design of the Asper with both interpreting sensor data to some degree, cross referencing their feeds in order to reduce the effectiveness of decoy and jamming attempts. However only one of these systems are dedicated to processing the bulk of the data, the other computer system acting as the missile's flight control system and interpreter of communications. This data link being provided by a dual mode IR/Radio STL and FTL capable communications system. These systems are also capable of adjusting the missile's guidance mode and behavior depending on what parameters where programmed into it by the launching craft enabling it to deal with a wide variety of situations and battlefield conditions.

Listed here are the standard guidance modes the Asper missile can employ or be switched to by its launching craft or controlling entity, other options including hybrid modes can also be employed via reprogramming the missile before launch.

• Passive Seeker, Radar Homing
  • A launch mode in which the missile is homing in on radiated radar energy from a target being illuminated by either the launch vehicle's radar or another guiding platform. This is a semi-active means of guidance in which the missile requires another platform to illuminate the target, however the missile is 'emission quiet' during this mode.
• Passive Seeker Launch, Midpoint Active Seeker
  • A launch mode in which the missile is employing a semi-active guidance mode until the midpoint of its flight (or the launching platform chooses) to go active with its own onboard active sensors. This will typically be mixed in with various passive sensors to reduce ECM performance against the missile.
• Home on Jam/ECM Source
  • A passive mode in which the missile can be launched in or switch to during flight in a heavy ECM environment in which it selects and homes in on large sources of electromagnetic interference. This can be board spectrum or the missile can target specific narrow bands.
• Silhouette Lock Fire and Forget
  • A visual 'pattern' type locking system in which the missile is trained on the spectral silhouette of a designated threat and then launched with pattern recognition software homing in on this specific signature in both visual and infrared. Effectively allowing the launching vehicle to acquire, fire or take cover from a threat.
• Optic Lock Fire and Forget with Mid Point Active Guidance
  • Initially a visual semi-active guidance mode in which the launching vehicle or guiding platform directs the missile for the initial quarter or half of the flight before breaking the data link and switching the missile over to a active guidance mode. The weapon system then using its own sensors and targeting data to guide itself into the target allowing the launcher to slip away.
• 'Launch on Data Set' Fire and Forget
  • An indirect attack method in which the launching platform fires the weapon on a data set from another platform's sensors, the weapon being uploaded with a specific threat target and a set of coordinates where the target will be. Once launched the weapon is 'fire and forget' using its own onboard sensor systems and data-links to find its way to the target.

(1.127 Gigatons Nominal Yield for direct KKV Impact - Vacuum Velocity Only)
The Asper employs a kinetic kill methodology with three primary impact options depending on both the launching vehicles setting parameters as well as the missiles own adaptive programming. The first and primary method is the simple 'skin skin' kinetic kill in which the missile directly impacts the target using its own mass and speed to destroy it. Typically fantastic in result in both the size of the vapor cloud and the resulting fragmentation it is often used against larger targets. The second and third method are fragmentation based with one employing a forward oriented conical pattern and the other simply reducing the entire missile body into a cloud of fragments. While lower in mass and resulting damage it dramatically increases the hit chance against small and or fast moving targets.