Russia and China both have more hypersonic weapon systems in use or advanced development, while the US has none. The seemingly unstoppable weapons travel faster than Mach 5 or about 3,800 miles per hour.
A senior Pentagon official told lawmakers on Wednesday that the Missile Defense Agency is preparing a test in which a Standard Missile (MS) -6 will attempt to shoot down a simulated hypersonic missile later this year. Ultra-fast weapons are notoriously difficult to track and harder to lower.
Director of Defense Research and Engineering and Research and Technology Barbara McQuiston told the Senate Defense Committee on Wednesday that the MDA and the U.S. Navy have already seen promising signs that the advanced SM-6 missile could drop “a representative advanced target for threatening threats.” ”- a capacity that it intends to test later this year and continue development in 2024.
“We are also working with the Missile Defense Agency to accelerate a comprehensive stratified defeat capability against opposing tactical hypersonic weapons, including kinetic defense in the terminal and flight phases of the flight, as well as strike left launch launches. of missiles, ”McQuiston said. Left launching refers to sabotaging missile programs during their development or even individual missiles on their launch sites to prevent their launch or use. It may also include preventive strikes.
As The War Zone noted, “advanced maneuver threat” is a Pentagon language for a sliding hypersonic vehicle, the powerless ultra-maneuverable device that carefully delivers the focus to its target after it has been accelerated beyond Mach 5 a rocket engine.
Hypersonic weapons are notoriously difficult to detect and track. The existing space-based infrared system that the Pentagon uses to identify ballistic missile launches by detecting intense heat from their rocket engines, which stands out against the background heat on Earth. However, hypersonic missiles do not use their rocket engines for as long as ballistic missiles, giving satellites less time to realize their trajectory before the engine stops and the unloaded glider vehicle “cools”, disappearing from infrared viewing. To fill this dangerous hole in US defense, the Space Force has contracted for a new generation of wide and medium field of view satellites.
It is possible that radars on US ballistic missile systems, such as Patriot and THAAD, may also be able to track hypersonic weapons. However, it’s one thing to notice a hypersonic rocket – it’s quite another to shoot one. Sergei Surovikin, commander of the Russian Air Force, said the future Prometheus S-500 air defense system would be able to shoot down hypersonic weapons and noted that “a certain amount of adjustment” would allow the S-400 Triumf and 9K37 Buk missile systems. to do that too.
Lockheed Martin
Rendering of an AGM-183A Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) with its hypersonic sliding warhead
To build an anti-hypersonic missile, however, we must first build another hypersonic missile, and the US registration on this front leaves much to be desired. Earlier this month, the first delay and long-awaited first launch of the AGM-183A Rapidly Launched Weapon (ARRW) test did not occur after the rocket failed to separate from the parent aircraft. It would have been the first test of hypersonic weapons in the United States. Meanwhile, Russia and China already have several hypersonic missiles or advanced stages of development in operation.
Current versions of the SM-6 used have a top speed of about 3,500 miles per hour, but according to The War Zone, Block IB missiles receive a substantial engine improvement that could push them to hypersonic speed.
Russia also has one of the few radars capable of tracking a hypersonic weapon. The very high-frequency Rezonans-N radar is capable of detecting vehicles with hypersonic slip up to 372 miles away, according to Barents Observer. It is a modified version of the Rezonans ballistic missile tracking radar, which specializes in tracking objects up to 20 times the speed of sound. About half a dozen Rezonans-N radars have been installed on Russia’s northern coast between the Kola Peninsula and Novaya Zemlya in the past two years, but none are still believed to be operational.
That being said, if any missile in the US arsenal could drop a hypersonic weapon, it would be SM-6. Notoriously versatile, what was originally designed as an air defense missile has been adapted to anti-missile tasks and may even reach surface targets. Another missile in the SM family, SM-3, was even used to shoot down a satellite in 2008. In November, the U.S. military announced that it would adapt the SM-6 to a ground-based version to cover the strike needs of middle. .