Hypersonic Weapons Development in China, Russia and the United States PDF Download

Author: Larry M. Wortzel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aerodynamics, Hypersonic
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"According to the Financial Times of 16 October 2021, "China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise." The remarkable thing about the test is that the warhead was launched into orbit, orbited Earth and reentered the atmosphere, approaching its target at hypersonic speed. Such a weapon would be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The United States has established defenses against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in Alaska, but the method used to attack the target by the People's Republic of China (PRC) missile would be capable of evading fixed U.S. defenses by avoiding the expected polar ballistic trajectory that the U.S. defenses are designed to intercept. This test by China has direct influence on the Army because the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) is responsible for detecting strategic attacks and protecting the U.S. homeland. SMDC defense systems are deployed to intercept ballistic missile warheads from only one direction, using a polar, or arctic, approach. Another SMDC mission is to enhance deterrence and detection of strategic attacks. The hypersonic threat is not only from China; Russia has successfully tested a naval hypersonic missile, the Zircon, and North Korea claims to have tested a hypersonic missile. Financial Times (FT) sources were surprised that China achieved the capability for such a weapon because the hypersonic glide vehicle carrying the warhead stayed in low-earth orbit, circling the globe before reentering the atmosphere to attack its target. Even though the warhead missed its target by a wide margin, China is far ahead of the United States in developing such capabilities; the United States has experienced a number of failures in developing hypersonic weapons. Why U.S. officials were so surprised by the test is a little bit of a mystery. China has been working on these missiles for decades, and the United States knew it. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency's 2019 China Military Power Report, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) "is developing a range of technologies to counter U.S. and other countries' ballistic missile defense systems, including maneuverable reentry vehicles (MARVs), MIRVs [multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles], decoys, chaff, jamming, thermal shielding, and hypersonic glide vehicles" (emphasis added). If senior U.S. officials were surprised, it is because the intelligence community apparently underestimated China's capabilities in this area and failed to follow or appreciate years of mentions in Chinese research reports about work on hypersonic missiles in China, and perhaps underestimated the emphasis the PLA put on their development. Although the PRC warhead in the test missed its target by a wide margin of about two dozen miles, the FT article quotes U.S. experts and officials as saying that "China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realized." As noted previously, however, U.S. officials should not have been surprised by the development of hypersonic warheads in orbit by the Chinese People's Liberation Army Rocket Forces (PLARF). China has been conducting research on such hypersonic technology and weapons for some time. Put into practical defense and security terms, this involved putting warheads into low-earth orbit and having them seek targets on Earth. The strategy is not new. The Soviet Union experimented with this type of warhead in the early 1960s. The United States called it a "Fractional Orbital Bombardment System" during the Cold War period, but the U.S.S.R. eventually moved to other forms of deterrent systems designed to threaten the United States and China. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara declared in November 1967 that the Russian Fractional Orbit Bombardment System tests did not violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The PRC denied that any such test had been conducted. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the August test was "a spacecraft, not a missile," according to multiple media reports. U.S. officials do not believe Zhao's denial."--Introduction.