There is in fact a remarkably useful set of well developed air launch rockets that help provide a nice “benchmark” for comparison with air launching satellites/

There is in fact a remarkably useful set of well developed air launch rockets that help provide a nice “benchmark” for comparison with air launching satellites/etc using rockets. Anti-SATellite (ASAT) weapons are making similar engineering trade offs but aiming at a different set of capabilities, optimising for smaller sizes, being “rack ready” in the event war breaks out, and so on. Unlike the more modern ship launched SM3 that is part of the Ageis system, the older ASM-135 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT was designed to be air launched in a supersonic zoom climb to get maximum speed and altitude from the aircraft in order to maximise its capabilities. For an even better comparison, you can compare air launches ASAT missiles with sounding rockets, they have a greater similarity in their trajectories/launch profiles, so it’s easier to see what the air launch “gains” over the ground launch.