IGOR

IGOR. . Intercept Ground Optical Recorder The IGOR ("eye-gore") is a tracking telescope designed to provide photographic records of missile performance, such as attitude, intercept miss-distance, and other events data. With its long focal length lens, the IGOR could photograph missiles up to 100 miles away., The IGOR (Intercept Ground Optical Recorder) consists of a telescope optical system, a high-speed movie camera, sighting telescopes, and the instrument mount. The mount is a modified U.S. Navy 5-inch/25 Mark 19 Navy gun mount adapted to hold the telescope. Two trackers sit on opposite sides of the mount and move the telescope and camera in azimuth (side to side) and elevation (up and down)., Designed and built by the Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) in Aberdeen, Maryland, using an optical system specified by Clyde Tombaugh, the first IGOR was installed at WSMR in October 1951. It was first used to track an Army Corporal missile on 6 December 1951. On display here is model number two, installed in late 1951. It was followed by eight more IGORs emplaced around WSMR. These tracking telescopes were used extensively through 1965., In 1952, the crew of this IGOR No. 2 took a photograph of the first Armed Live Warhead Intercept of a Nike Ajax missile and its target, a B-17 bomber. Their photograph won the Ernie Pyle Award for outstanding still photo in support of national security.