La Missile Defense Agency (MDA) de EUA, avanza aceleradamente en el desarrollo de un sistema de vigilancia \u201cbasado en el espacio\u201d, para hacer frente a la amenaza de los misiles hipers\u00f3nicos de Rusia y China. \u201cHypersonic Ballistic Missile Tracking Space Sensor\u201d (HBTSS) se integrar\u00e1 con una red de sat\u00e9lites capaces de detectar, adquirir y trackear la trayectoria impredecible de los revolucionarios misiles hipers\u00f3nicos, proporcionando la informaci\u00f3n necesaria a los sistemas defensivos, para hacer frente a las amenazas con la mejor alternativa disponible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now – the Pentagon wants to stop them with new space sensor layer technology designed to give U.S. commanders a chance to knock hypersonic missiles straight out of the sky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is now entering Phase IIa of an \nemerging sensor technology specifically engineered to establish a \ncontinuous \u201ctrack\u201d on approaching hypersonic missiles. It\u2019s called \nHypersonic Ballistic Missile Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHBTSS will become a primary part of a hybrid tracking layer within \nthe National Defense Space Architecture, which consists of systems in \ndifferent orbits that provide the capability to detect and track both \nconventional ballistic missiles and emerging threats,\u201d Missile Defense \nAgency spokeswoman Maria Njoku, told Warrior in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hypersonic weapons are no longer a somewhat distant future prospect. They are here and fast-evolving toward new levels of lethality. It is well known that the Pentagon has been fast-tracking a range of fast-moving hypersonic weapons programs, many of them now at mature levels of performance. It is also well known and widely discussed that some U.S. rivals, Russia and China in particular, are possibly ahead of the U.S. when it comes to the development and testing of these weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The weapons not only travel at 5-times the speed of sound but also \nmaneuver in flight, at times traveling along the edges of the earth\u2019s \natmosphere to descend upon targets with overwhelming destructive speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While many applications are still evolving, hypersonic attack possibilities have few limits, bringing the prospect of nearly instant air, land or sea-fired attacks nearly impossible to defend. Commanders facing missile attack typically know the flight time, trajectory and potential impact point of approaching ballistic missiles and are able to use the little time available to decide which elements of a layered defense might be needed to destroy an attack. While current ICBM and missile attacks of course still present response-time challenges, the weapons are known by defenders. An ICBM, for example, will need about 20-mins to travel through space, allowing sufficient time for defenders to launch one or two Ground Based Interceptors. Hypersonics radically change this equation, bringing an exponential decrease in defensive response time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hypersonic weapons \u201ccould reach targets that are 1000km away within \nminutes,\u201d an interesting 2019 essay from a UK-based think tank called \nArticle36. The essay is titled called \u201cConvention on Certain \nConventional Weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Significantly, the impact of this kind of threat seems to be \nanticipated in a 2017 essay in AIP Conference Proceedings which cites a \nneed for the U.S. military to re-craft its command and control doctrine \nto better track hypersonic threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile operational doctrine and command structures adequately address\n traditional atmospheric air attack or exoatmospheric ballistic missile \nattack, existing doctrine and organizational structure may not be \nadequate to address the cross-domain threat posed by hypersonics,\u201d the \nessay, called \u201cGlobal Strike Hypersonic Weapons,\u201d states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the significance and timeframe of this threat, the Missile \nDefense Agency is moving quickly on HBTSS. The MDA recently awarded \nL3Harris, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Leidos Phase II development \ncontracts to further develop HBTSS prototypes and payload technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interestingly, an essay written by a senior Northrop Grumman weapons \ndeveloper specifies some of the particular challenges presented by \nhypersonic attack. They are \u201csuper-charged missiles that don\u2019t follow a \nstandard ballistic trajectory and can maneuver around fixed defenses or \nskim along the surface below radar coverage. These are inherently \nunpredictable threats that can be fired from fixed silos, road-mobile \nlaunchers or ships at sea,\u201d Ken Todorov, Vice President of Missile \nDefense Solutions, Northrop Grumman, writes in an essay called \n\u201cDefeating Invincible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, the threat of hypersonic attack is so serious that some weapons developers are of the view that there is no defense — and instead suggest that the only counter to them is through a massive, commensurate offensive hypersonic attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not so fast – according to current Pentagon and U.S. industry \npartners, who say HBTSS can make defense possible, despite the speed and\n destructive power of hypersonic attack. HBTSS is, among other things, \nbeing engineered with a specific mind to establishing a continuous \ntrack, following hypersonic weapons with a single sensor payload from \nlaunch through impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHBTSS’ mission is to detect and track hypersonic threats and ballistic missiles, providing low-latency critical data to the Missile Defense System,\u201d Njoku said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Existing radar systems, which analyze an electronic return signal \nafter bouncing off a threat, are limited by a linear trajectory and \ncannot extend beyond the horizon without an airborne sensor node. As a \nresult, the Pentagon continue to improve networking technologies \ndesigned to link and integrate a variety of otherwise disparate radars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HBTSS is, by contrast, engineered to establish a continuous track of an approaching missile, better enabling countermeasure options such as an interceptor missile, EW system designed to throw the missile off course or other kinds of emerging defensive options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHBTSS will be a network of sensors on a constellation of satellites \nin orbit around the Earth with the ability to observe global threats \nwithout the line of site limitations of ground-based radars,\u201d Njoku \nexplained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As an industry developer, Todorov said Northrop is working on a \u201csystem of systems\u201d approach to include HBTSS as part of a larger-scale, sweeping space-sensor layer connected to a diverse sphere of countermeasures and other technologies. Todorov is, among others, an advocate of better integrating offensive and defensive weapons able to both strike with and defend against hypersonic weapons. \u201cIt is not enough to merely see the threat. If we stop at seeing it and tracking it, we are missing a chance,\u201d Todorov said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are clear synergies between the development of strike missiles\n and defensive interceptors. There are also mature programs of record in\n non-kinetic directed energy, electronic attack and cyber that can be \nrapidly adapted to counter hypersonic threats in an integrated defensive\n and offensive approach,\u201d Todorov writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hypersonic weapons, which can carry either conventional or nuclear weapons, fall into two basic categories to include \u201cboost-glide\u201d Hypersonic Glide Missiles (HGV) and Hypersonic Cruise Missiles (HCM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
HGVs are highly maneuverable weapons typically launched by a rocket into the upper atmosphere and released at an altitude of between 40 and 100km, and HCMs, or \u201cair-breathing\u201d cruise missiles, are powered through an entire flight, the essay explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey (HCMs) would likely fly at an altitude of 20 to 30km, beyond the reach of most current air-to-surface missile defence system. They need to be accelerated to a speed of Mach 5 before an advanced jet (ramjet, scramjet) engine can take over to maintain speeds,\u201d the Article36 essay writes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n