Solar blind ultraviolet (UV) detection system has attracted widespread attention in both civil and military fields because of its unique advantages in detection, especially its incomparable superiority in missile warning field. The principle and advantages of UV warning system and the key technology of UV detection system are analyzed. The design indices of solar blind UV optical system are determined according to the application requirement of UV warning system. Based on the analysis of selection method of initial structure, the optical power is assigned according to the aberration theory. Then the optical design software Zemax is used to optimize the initial structure and evaluate the image quality. A solar blind UV optical system with the focal length of 150 mm, relative aperture of 1∶3 and field of view of ±4° is finally designed. The result shows that the encircled energy is higher than 90% in a pixel size (25 mm) of intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD), and the modulation transfer function (MTF) is higher than 0.7 at the Nyquist frequency (20 lp/mm). All of the data satisfy the design requirement. The system is highly valuable because of its characteristics of excellent imaging quality, compact configuration and light weight.