“Except that in Red Storm Rising, it was a modified air intercept missile fired from a fighter, an F18, IIRC.”
Actually in the book it was labeled as an ASAT missile, and was fired from an F-15
IIRC, the pilot’s nickname in the book was “Buns” or something like that.
It’s been a lot of years since I read that book. I do recall that the stealth fighter was nicknamed the “frisbee” because of its smooth, curved lines, showing that Clancy bought a lot of the disinformation most of the world did at the time. And IIRC, the F-15 satellite-killer pilot was a woman; I remember a line about how with the fifth kill, she became the first USAF ace.