"An effective counter-hypersonic defence is actually a complete system. It starts from knowing that a threat is going to launch and includes sensing it, ensuring that the interceptor is getting real-time updates on the threat’s location and verifying that we have intercepted the most likely threat in a complex scene — and then if needed, getting the next one and the next one.".— Tyler St. Onge, Senior Manager Missile Defense, Northrop Grumman.They say it is like "trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.".A seemingly impossible task. Or is it?.The US Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Glide Phase Interceptor program (GPI) is designed to knock down high-speed hypersonic missiles during the glide phase of flight — a task easier said than done.. Hypersonic missilesHypersonic missiles .MDA’s continued investment in this weapon comes amid increasing worry from Pentagon officials about the burgeoning hypersonic capabilities of both Russia and China..The technological advancements from the latter, are especially worrying, according to this report from Science.org..High in the sky over northwestern China, a wedge-shaped unmanned vehicle separated from a rocket. Coasting along at up to Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound, the Xingkong-2 "waverider" hypersonic cruise missile (HCM) bobbed and weaved through the stratosphere, surfing on its own shock waves. At least that's how the weapon's developer, the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, described the August 2018 test. The HCM's speed and manoeuvrability, crowed the Communist Party's Global Times, would enable the new weapon to "break through any current generation anti-missile defence system.".In other words, it's your basic wake-up call to the US and its Western allies..Hypersonic missiles are manoeuvrable weapons that can fly at speeds of at least Mach 5. They travel within the atmosphere and can manoeuvre midway, making their detection and interception extremely difficult, if not impossible..So damaging are these weapons, that even without a warhead, a true hypersonic glide body could tear through an aircraft carrier, possibly putting it out of action..This week, the MDA selected Raytheon and Northrop Grumman to move to the next phase of its GPI program, as the agency works to beef up US defences, Breaking Defense reported..The US Defense Department (DoD) announced that the two defence giants will receive firm fixed-price contract modifications worth more than US$41.4 million to continue developing their proposals for the hypersonic missile defence system..Under the new awards, the contractors will “continue to further develop and refine their concept leading to a system requirements review — [a] prototype,” the contract announcement states. The total value of the contracts is over US$60 million for each contractor.. Hypersonic missilesHypersonic missiles .The announcement means that defence giant Lockheed Martin is out of the running. However, reports indicate that the company could be brought back in at a later date..But is it even possible that such a defensive weapon could be created? Can it really be done?.Keep in mind, the US is largely defenceless against such weapons, at least for now, in part because it can't track them.."Unstoppable today does not mean unstoppable tomorrow," Shari Feth, a materials engineer at MDA told Science.org.."There are technologies that could be developed that could be used for a more robust defence," Feth says. "But we have more work to do to get there.".Officially, it's full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes..“GPI will play a central role in ensuring the United States maintains the most reliable and advanced missile defense systems in the world that are capable of outpacing and defeating evolving missile threats,” Rich Straka, vice-president of launch vehicles at Northrop Grumman, said in a statement..“Our GPI is built on proven missile defence technology as its foundation,” said Tay Fitzgerald, president of Raytheon Missiles & Defense, in a statement..“By using digital engineering and leveraging high-technology-readiness-level components and subsystems already in use across Standard Missile and hypersonic programs, we can quickly advance the creation of this new interceptor.”.All that technical jargon essentially means, "we think so.".How will it work?.According to Breaking Defense, the interceptors will be fired from Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense destroyers and integrate into the Aegis Weapon System to detect, track, and engage hypersonic missiles across the glide phase of a missile’s flight — its most vulnerable stage..The GPI is meant to fit into MDA’s “layered” missile defense architecture..Hypersonic weapons come in two categories:.1. Hypersonic cruise missiles, which are powered by high-performance, air-breathing engines known as scramjets (HCM).2. Hypersonic glide vehicles, which comprise a maneuverable glide vehicle launched on a ballistic missile or rocket booster (HGV)..Both types of weapons are notionally preprogrammed to fly to a specified target..“When the enemy launches a booster stack, it’s difficult to know if that warhead is going to follow a ballistic path or a hypersonic path,” observed Tyler St. Onge, senior manager missile defense at Northrop Grumman..With a traditional intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), he explained, the warhead separates from its booster, then continues on a parabolic, gravity-driven trajectory..By contrast, a hypersonic weapon separates from its booster after the peak of its trajectory, accelerates toward the Earth using gravity, then performs a pitch maneuver to begin a flatter trajectory called the glide phase..And that’s when life gets interesting..In March 2018, as Breaking Defense reported, MDA Director Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves outlined the central challenge of defeating hypersonic weapons..“If you can’t see it, you can’t shoot it,” he said..Recognizing that the US can’t build enough ground-based radars to detect and track high-speed, low-flying threats soon enough to intercept them, Greaves argued that tracking the threats from space would make more sense..This is why MDA has been conducting a competition to design and build a network of sensors, known as the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS)..The plan is to launch hundreds of small satellites with sensors capable of tracking heat sources an order of magnitude cooler than rocket boosters..According to the Northrop Grumman website, during the glide phase, hypersonic weapons are travelling at blinding speeds and relatively low altitudes — typically 20 to 80 km..However, the really vexing problem with glide weapons is that they can navigate around areas containing known missile defence sensors..“So, you may think you know where it’s heading, but then suddenly it turns and heads unperturbed to a target 200 km away,” St. Onge said..The solution? Using a hypersonic system to take out a hypersonic system..Another possibility is to fly faster — a tall order that would demand new lightweight, heat-resistant composites and alloys..Newer hypersonic craft tend to have sharper edges — in part to assist with maneuverability — that can exceed 2000°C. Turbulence can make things worse..At hypersonic speeds, the boundary layer around the vehicle thickens, and a smooth, laminar flow can suddenly break up into eddies that cause temperature spikes..But using advanced weapons technology to counter hypersonics is not just about building the right satellite sensors or even producing the right interceptor..A successful counter-hypersonic system will have to rely heavily on effective command and control (C2) among MDA, military commanders and tri-service missile defense assets..“MDA does not control all the assets that might be needed in a missile defence engagement, but they can tie them all together,” said St. Onge. “They can help to create that common operating picture that will help determine who’s got the best shot and, if that first shot misses, who’s got the next shot and so on.”.If that sounds complicated, and expensive, it most definitely is..Although hype and secrecy muddy the picture, China and Russia appear to have made substantial progress in overcoming key obstacles, such as protecting hypersonic craft from savage frictional heating..Russia recently unveiled a weapon called the Kinzhal, said to reach Mach 10 under its own power, and another, the Avangard, that is boosted by a rocket to an astonishing Mach 27..Afterward, a beaming Russian President Vladimir Putin called Avangard "the perfect New Year's gift for the country.".China has also showed off a rocket-boosted HGV of its own, the Dongfeng-17..Other nations are chasing the trio of leaders — or teaming up with them. Australia is collaborating with the US on a Mach 8 HGV, and India with Russia on a Mach 7 HCM. France intends to field an HCM by 2022, and Japan is aiming for an HGV in 2026.."National pride is at stake," said Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado, Boulder.."It's a race to the moon, sort of thing."
"An effective counter-hypersonic defence is actually a complete system. It starts from knowing that a threat is going to launch and includes sensing it, ensuring that the interceptor is getting real-time updates on the threat’s location and verifying that we have intercepted the most likely threat in a complex scene — and then if needed, getting the next one and the next one.".— Tyler St. Onge, Senior Manager Missile Defense, Northrop Grumman.They say it is like "trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.".A seemingly impossible task. Or is it?.The US Missile Defense Agency's (MDA) Glide Phase Interceptor program (GPI) is designed to knock down high-speed hypersonic missiles during the glide phase of flight — a task easier said than done.. Hypersonic missilesHypersonic missiles .MDA’s continued investment in this weapon comes amid increasing worry from Pentagon officials about the burgeoning hypersonic capabilities of both Russia and China..The technological advancements from the latter, are especially worrying, according to this report from Science.org..High in the sky over northwestern China, a wedge-shaped unmanned vehicle separated from a rocket. Coasting along at up to Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound, the Xingkong-2 "waverider" hypersonic cruise missile (HCM) bobbed and weaved through the stratosphere, surfing on its own shock waves. At least that's how the weapon's developer, the China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, described the August 2018 test. The HCM's speed and manoeuvrability, crowed the Communist Party's Global Times, would enable the new weapon to "break through any current generation anti-missile defence system.".In other words, it's your basic wake-up call to the US and its Western allies..Hypersonic missiles are manoeuvrable weapons that can fly at speeds of at least Mach 5. They travel within the atmosphere and can manoeuvre midway, making their detection and interception extremely difficult, if not impossible..So damaging are these weapons, that even without a warhead, a true hypersonic glide body could tear through an aircraft carrier, possibly putting it out of action..This week, the MDA selected Raytheon and Northrop Grumman to move to the next phase of its GPI program, as the agency works to beef up US defences, Breaking Defense reported..The US Defense Department (DoD) announced that the two defence giants will receive firm fixed-price contract modifications worth more than US$41.4 million to continue developing their proposals for the hypersonic missile defence system..Under the new awards, the contractors will “continue to further develop and refine their concept leading to a system requirements review — [a] prototype,” the contract announcement states. The total value of the contracts is over US$60 million for each contractor.. Hypersonic missilesHypersonic missiles .The announcement means that defence giant Lockheed Martin is out of the running. However, reports indicate that the company could be brought back in at a later date..But is it even possible that such a defensive weapon could be created? Can it really be done?.Keep in mind, the US is largely defenceless against such weapons, at least for now, in part because it can't track them.."Unstoppable today does not mean unstoppable tomorrow," Shari Feth, a materials engineer at MDA told Science.org.."There are technologies that could be developed that could be used for a more robust defence," Feth says. "But we have more work to do to get there.".Officially, it's full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes..“GPI will play a central role in ensuring the United States maintains the most reliable and advanced missile defense systems in the world that are capable of outpacing and defeating evolving missile threats,” Rich Straka, vice-president of launch vehicles at Northrop Grumman, said in a statement..“Our GPI is built on proven missile defence technology as its foundation,” said Tay Fitzgerald, president of Raytheon Missiles & Defense, in a statement..“By using digital engineering and leveraging high-technology-readiness-level components and subsystems already in use across Standard Missile and hypersonic programs, we can quickly advance the creation of this new interceptor.”.All that technical jargon essentially means, "we think so.".How will it work?.According to Breaking Defense, the interceptors will be fired from Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense destroyers and integrate into the Aegis Weapon System to detect, track, and engage hypersonic missiles across the glide phase of a missile’s flight — its most vulnerable stage..The GPI is meant to fit into MDA’s “layered” missile defense architecture..Hypersonic weapons come in two categories:.1. Hypersonic cruise missiles, which are powered by high-performance, air-breathing engines known as scramjets (HCM).2. Hypersonic glide vehicles, which comprise a maneuverable glide vehicle launched on a ballistic missile or rocket booster (HGV)..Both types of weapons are notionally preprogrammed to fly to a specified target..“When the enemy launches a booster stack, it’s difficult to know if that warhead is going to follow a ballistic path or a hypersonic path,” observed Tyler St. Onge, senior manager missile defense at Northrop Grumman..With a traditional intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), he explained, the warhead separates from its booster, then continues on a parabolic, gravity-driven trajectory..By contrast, a hypersonic weapon separates from its booster after the peak of its trajectory, accelerates toward the Earth using gravity, then performs a pitch maneuver to begin a flatter trajectory called the glide phase..And that’s when life gets interesting..In March 2018, as Breaking Defense reported, MDA Director Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves outlined the central challenge of defeating hypersonic weapons..“If you can’t see it, you can’t shoot it,” he said..Recognizing that the US can’t build enough ground-based radars to detect and track high-speed, low-flying threats soon enough to intercept them, Greaves argued that tracking the threats from space would make more sense..This is why MDA has been conducting a competition to design and build a network of sensors, known as the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS)..The plan is to launch hundreds of small satellites with sensors capable of tracking heat sources an order of magnitude cooler than rocket boosters..According to the Northrop Grumman website, during the glide phase, hypersonic weapons are travelling at blinding speeds and relatively low altitudes — typically 20 to 80 km..However, the really vexing problem with glide weapons is that they can navigate around areas containing known missile defence sensors..“So, you may think you know where it’s heading, but then suddenly it turns and heads unperturbed to a target 200 km away,” St. Onge said..The solution? Using a hypersonic system to take out a hypersonic system..Another possibility is to fly faster — a tall order that would demand new lightweight, heat-resistant composites and alloys..Newer hypersonic craft tend to have sharper edges — in part to assist with maneuverability — that can exceed 2000°C. Turbulence can make things worse..At hypersonic speeds, the boundary layer around the vehicle thickens, and a smooth, laminar flow can suddenly break up into eddies that cause temperature spikes..But using advanced weapons technology to counter hypersonics is not just about building the right satellite sensors or even producing the right interceptor..A successful counter-hypersonic system will have to rely heavily on effective command and control (C2) among MDA, military commanders and tri-service missile defense assets..“MDA does not control all the assets that might be needed in a missile defence engagement, but they can tie them all together,” said St. Onge. “They can help to create that common operating picture that will help determine who’s got the best shot and, if that first shot misses, who’s got the next shot and so on.”.If that sounds complicated, and expensive, it most definitely is..Although hype and secrecy muddy the picture, China and Russia appear to have made substantial progress in overcoming key obstacles, such as protecting hypersonic craft from savage frictional heating..Russia recently unveiled a weapon called the Kinzhal, said to reach Mach 10 under its own power, and another, the Avangard, that is boosted by a rocket to an astonishing Mach 27..Afterward, a beaming Russian President Vladimir Putin called Avangard "the perfect New Year's gift for the country.".China has also showed off a rocket-boosted HGV of its own, the Dongfeng-17..Other nations are chasing the trio of leaders — or teaming up with them. Australia is collaborating with the US on a Mach 8 HGV, and India with Russia on a Mach 7 HCM. France intends to field an HCM by 2022, and Japan is aiming for an HGV in 2026.."National pride is at stake," said Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado, Boulder.."It's a race to the moon, sort of thing."
