Home Americas

US’ Only Weapon To Counter China’s Hypersonic Threats: MDA Chief Reveals Details About Its ‘Super Interceptor Missile’

As China achieves new milestones in its hypersonic development, the United States is frantically looking to build an impregnable defense system, but there is little success so far.

F-35 Lightning II Set To Get A ‘Lightning Shield’; Key Upgrades To USAF Stealth Jets Will Allow Unrestricted Flight

US Navy Vice Adm. Jon Hill, the head of the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA), recently said that the multi-purpose SM-6 missile is the only weapon in the country’s inventory that can bring down highly maneuverable hypersonic threats.

This follows the agency’s announcement last year that it intends to test an undisclosed version of the SM-6 against an “advanced maneuvering threat,” a word normally associated with unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, perhaps in the fiscal year 2024.

SM-6 Missile | Raytheon Missiles & Defense
SM-6 Missile | Raytheon Missiles

Hill was speaking about the SM-6 during a discussion regarding hypersonic defensive capabilities at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ Combat Systems Symposium, which began on January 31.

The SM-6 series “is really the nation’s only hypersonic defense capability,” Hill said, without specifying any particular version of this missile. He added that these weapons have a “nascent capability” to engage incoming hypersonic threats.

 

“We didn’t call it that back when we got the letter from the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations], the Navy’s top uniformed officer to go develop this program,” he explained. “But the whole idea was to handle high-speed maneuver.”

These comments are significant and are the testimony that the United States acknowledges that intercepting a hypersonic glide vehicle is a very difficult task.

Chinese ‘Stealth’ Espionage! How Beijing-Backed Hackers ‘Acquired’ Sensitive US Tech Used In Its F-35 Fighter Jet?

Unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicles typically require a rocket booster to achieve the desired speed and height. The vehicle is then detached from the bulk of the weapon and begins gliding back down along an atmospheric trajectory toward its target at hypersonic speed.

They are designed to be able to make rapid and unanticipated shifts throughout their flight paths, especially when compared to typical ballistic missile trajectories that follow a fixed trajectory.

This mobility, combined with their high speed and general flight profile, makes them extremely difficult to detect and track, particularly with sensors meant for normal ballistic missiles.

Neither MDA nor the US Space Force has stated how far they can monitor hypersonic weapons or how near the US is to intercepting a hypersonic missile. Hypersonic missiles can fly low and maneuver during the cruise phase, evading radar.

They are designed to destroy high-value targets fast, such as aircraft carriers, as previously stated by Air Force Magazine.

Missile-Based Defense

Only the SM-6, one of the 10 primary missiles that arm the Navy’s 285 surface ships and submarines (and counting), is capable of striking targets at sea, in the air, and at the edge of the atmosphere.

New missions are only added to this current missile via software upgrades, as part of Raytheon Technologies’ attempt to quickly deliver new capabilities in the hands of US and allied forces, according to the company.

The SM-6 currently has two variants in service, Block I and Block IA, with a third variant, Block IB under development. Block IB missile is significantly different from the previous two variants, with a fully new fuselage and a larger rocket motor. The most spectacular thing about the Block IB variant is that it is expected to be capable of reaching hypersonic speeds and, as a result, to have improved capabilities against hypersonic threats.

Read More

Exit mobile version