Russia and China both have multiple hypersonic weapon systems in use or advanced development, while the US does not. The seemingly unstoppable weapons move faster than Mach 5, or about 3800 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 (SM) -6 will attempt to shoot down a seemingly hypersonic missile later this year. The ultra-fast weapons are notoriously difficult to detect and more difficult to retrieve.
The director of research and engineering for defense for research and technology, Barbara McQuiston, told a Senate defense committee on Wednesday that the MDA and the U.S. Navy have already seen promising signs that the advanced SM-6 rocket is an advanced maneuverable threat-shooting target could shoot down – a capability they plan to test later this year and further develop until 2024.
“We are also working with the Missile Defense Agency to accelerate a comprehensive low-level defeat capability against adversary tactical hypersonic weapons, including kinetic defense in the terminal and gliding phases of the flight, as well as a strike to the left of the launch of missile launch complexes,” McQuiston further said. Left-of-launch refers to the sabotage of missile programs during their development or even individual missiles at their launch sites to prevent them from being fielded or used. It may also include preventative strikes.
As the war zone noted, ‘advanced maneuvering threat’ is a Pentagon language for a hypersonic boost glider, the unauthorized, ultra-maneuverable device that delivers the head-to-head to its target after being hit by a rocket engine past Mach 5 is accelerated.
It is difficult to detect and detect hypersonic weapons. The existing space-based infrared system used by the Pentagon to indicate ballistic missile launches by detecting the intense heat of their rocket engines, which stand out against the background heat of the Earth. Hypersonic missiles, however, do not use their rocket engines as long as ballistic missiles, giving the satellites less time to find out their trajectory before the engine breaks down and the unpowered glider “gets cold” and disappears from the infrared eye. To fill this dangerous hole in the American defense, the Space Force has launched a new generation of wide and medium-field view satellites.
It is possible that the radars on US anti-ballistic missile systems, such as the Patriot and THAAD, could also detect hypersonic weapons. However, it’s one thing to spot a hypersonic missile – it’s a whole other thing to shoot one down. Sergei Surovikin, commander of the Russian Air Force, said the upcoming S-500 Prometheus air defense system would be capable of firing hypersonic weapons and noted that “a certain amount of adaptation” to the S-400 Triumph and 9K37 Buk missile systems enable. to do the same.
Lockheed Martin
The delivery of an air-launched AGM-183A Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) showing its hypersonic sliding warhead
To build an anti-hypersonic rocket, however, you must first build another hypersonic rocket, and the American record on this front leaves much to be desired. Earlier this month, the delayed and long-awaited first test fire of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) did not take place after the missile could not separate from its parent aircraft. This would have been the first hypersonic weapon test of the USA. Meanwhile, Russia and China already have several hypersonic missiles in service or advanced development phases.
The current versions of the SM-6 in use have a top speed of about 5,500 miles per hour, but according to The War Zone, the Block IB missiles get a significant upgrade of the engine that can push it to hypersonic speed.
Russia also has one of the few radars that can detect a hypersonic weapon. According to the Barents Observer, the Rezonans-N is a very high-frequency radar capable of detecting hypersonic gliders up to 602 km away. It is a customized version of the Rezonans ballistic missile tracking radar, specializing in tracking objects up to 20 times the speed of sound. About half a dozen Rezonans-N radars have been installed on the north coast of Russia between the Kola Peninsula and Novaya Zemlya over the past two years, but it is suspected that none are in operation yet.
That said, if a missile in the U.S. arsenal can take down a hypersonic weapon, it’s the SM-6. Knownly versatile, originally designed as an anti-aircraft missile, it is adapted for anti-ballistic missile duties and can even hit surface targets. Another rocket in the SM family, the SM-3, was even used to shoot down a satellite in 2008. In November, the U.S. military announced it would adapt the SM-6 in a version launched on the ground to cover the mid-range strike needs.