File:AIM-9B Sidewinder heat-seeking missile Head.jpg

English: The First AIM-9B Sidewinder Heat-Seeking Missile Head: The near-infrared seeking eye in the Guidance and Control Group (GCG) Serial Number 1, from 1956.

Modern Sidewinder missiles are still in use by most Western Air Forces, and one recently shot down the Chinese spy balloon that drifted over the U.S. In a surreal historical note, the first use of the Sidewinder in combat was also against the People's Republic of China, by Taiwan in 1958.

It uses an innovative reticle seeker, and astronaut Wally Schirra remembered his first encounter with the "dome-shaped device, made of glass…a man-made eyeball. I was a cigarette smoker in those days, and I had one in my hand. As I crossed the room, I noticed that the eyeball was tracking me." Shirra was a Sidewinder project test pilot, and once had a Sidewinder circle back on him during a test flight but fortunately managed to outrun it.

Under the glass dome, a parabolic mirror spins gyroscopically at 4,200 rpm. The distance of an infrared blip’s reflection from the axis of spin indicated its angle-off and current from the centrally mounted lead-sulfide detector kept the “eye” on target via electromagnets around its rim and controlled the missile’s canard guide fins.

With just 14 tubes and 24 moving parts, the seeker aims for where the target is going, a "near-biological intelligence" that baffled the Soviet weapon teams at the time.

This particular GCG, S/N 1, was presented to Dr. Charles P. Smith, the Assistant Technical Director and head of the Naval Weapons Center Systems Development Department, on his departure in 1976. The body is signed in ballpoint by 76 of his scientists at the Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) at China Lake. Dr. Smith eventually became the country’s recognized expert in guided missiles, optical lasers, and infrared technology, and is responsible for developing the Sidewinder and Maverick missiles. It is now in the Future Ventures Space Collection.