 The program's many technical hurdles proved too difficult to overcome and the missile was withdrawn from field service by 1964.The Lacrosse project began with a United States Marine Corps requirement for a short-range guided missile to supplement conventional field artillery.The Navy's Bureau of Ordnance issued contracts to both the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in September 1947, for the study of design aspects pertaining to this mission.