US designing space-based missile interceptors and space sensors to counter hypersonic missiles

The US Missile Defense Agency and Defense Department have started designing space-based missile interceptors and space sensor that will be used for missile defenses and hypersonic defense.

Rich Abott, Defense Daily, reported statements made at Wednesdays Space and Missile Defense Symposium.

The director of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves said the agency is developing options to pursue space-based interceptor capability.

Griffin believes that detailed work can find affordable approaches. Many old designs had unrealistically high, uninformed cost estimates. Griffin said he has seen up to 50 cost estimates but none were recent so we do not know costs at this point.

Griffin believes space-based interceptors to go after ballistic missiles in the boost phase is a relatively easy technological challenge.

The U.S. is developing a range of hypersonic attack capabilities from near-term deployment options to longer-term Air Force and DARPA air-breathing efforts like the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon program (called Hacksaw) and the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (called Arrow).

Griffin does not know which hypersonic attack systems will win out. He said that is why we have DARPA, to explore advanced technological options.

Griffin has said that U.S. has always been at the forefront of developing hypersonic technology, but did not weaponize the results of that research. Russia and China have chosen to weaponize it. That’s the challenge. The US will respond.

Griffin was more concerned about Chinese hypersonic weapons developments than Russia’s.

China has been more thoughtful in their hypersonic systems development because they are developing long-range tactical precision-guided systems that could be really influential in a conventional fight.

Griffin said the only real way to reliably track hypersonic weapons is from space, beyond the horizon limits of terrestrial radars. Hypersonics are about a factor of 10 dimmer than strategic ballistic missiles so they cannot be monitored from a high orbit.

Experimental aircraft with the prototype low Earth orbit (LEO) Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) satellites show hypersonic tracking is possible and is not a technology challenge. There is a policy-decision-making challenge to decide about a LEO space layer sensor layer.

Nextbigfuture has noted that the SpaceX BFR would make putting anything into space about ten to one hundred times cheaper

The SpaceX BFR could be used to deploy space-based sensors and hypersonic defenses using the current US military space budget of $40 billion per year. This next section was Nextbigfuture speculation and putting what has been said about SpaceX BFR together with prior space-based weapon and defense work.

In 2017, Elon Musk’s video announcement of the Spacex BFR showed launching the BFR lower cost to launch than the Spacex Falcon 1. A graphic showed the Spacex BFR at lower cost than the Falcon 1.

In late 2009 SpaceX announced new prices for the Falcon 1 and 1e at $7 million and $8.5 million respectively, with small discounts available for multi-launch contracts.

This would mean at $7 million the Spacex BFR launch 150 tons would have less than a $50 per pound launch cost.

By 2025, there could be a fleet of 100 BFR. Each could be flying 10-50 times per year if there the market for launches can be grown with $40-200 per pound launch costs.

The USA could triple that production and buy a separate fleet of 200 Spacex BFR. If each cost $200 million, then it would cost $40 billion. This would be less than the planned spend for the Space Launch System which would have one or two flights per year. The USA could fly each 50 times and get 10,000 launches per year. For $7 million each flight that would be $70 billion per year to operate at maximum capacity.

The US already spends $40 billion on spy satellites and military space program.

Fully leveraging Spacex BFR fleet would mean the trivial deployment of Project Thor plus the ability to have a space corp of a hundred thousand or more people permanently station in various orbits, the moon, cislunar and other locations.

An Congressional analysis of hypersonic weapons also looked at modifying ballistic missiles to have non-nuclear warheads. The Navy looked closely at tungsten rod kinetic energy weapons on several occasions.

A 47 page Congressional Research Bureau report Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues was written by Amy F. Woolf, Specialist in Nuclear Weapons Policy.
Kinetic Energy Warheads

The Navy considered two types of warheads for the CTM program in the near term. One warhead would be designed to destroy or disable area targets like airfields or buildings, using a reentry vehicle loaded with tungsten rods—known as flechettes—that would rain down on the target and destroy everything within an area of up to 3,000 square feet. The other might be able to destroy hardened targets, like underground bunkers or reinforced structures, if it were accurate enough to strike very close to the target. Each would be deployed within the reentry body developed and tested under the E2 program. The Navy also explored, for possible future deployment, technologies that might be able to penetrate to destroy hardened, buried targets

The two primary advantages of a kinetic energy rod warhead is that 1) it does not rely on precise navigation as is the case with “hit-to-kill” vehicles and 2) it provides better penetration then blast fragmentation type warheads.

A 6.1 m × 0.3 m tungsten cylinder impacting at Mach 10 has a kinetic energy equivalent to approximately 11.5 tons of TNT (or 7.2 tons of dynamite). The mass of such a cylinder is itself greater than 9 tons, so it is clear that the practical applications of such a system are limited to those situations where its other characteristics provide a decisive advantage—a conventional bomb/warhead of similar weight to the tungsten rod, delivered by conventional means, provides similar destructive capability and is a far more practical method. Some other sources suggest a speed of 36,000 ft/s (11,000 m/s), which for the aforementioned rod would amount to a kinetic energy equivalent to 120 tons of TNT or 0.12 kt. With 6–8 satellites on a given orbit, a target could be hit within 12–15 minutes from any given time, less than half the time taken by an ICBM and without the warning. Such a system could also be equipped with sensors to detect incoming anti-ballistic missile-type threats and relatively light protective measures to use against them (e.g. Hit-To-Kill Missiles or megawatt-class chemical laser)

There is a Raytheon patent Kinetic energy rod warhead with optimal penetrators

Project Thor Orbital Rods from God

Project Thor was an idea for a weapons system that launches kinetic projectiles from Earth’s orbit to damage targets on the ground.

At speeds of at least 9 kilometers per second. Smaller weapons can deliver measured amounts of energy as large as a 225 kg conventional bomb. Some systems are quoted as having the yield of a small tactical nuclear bomb. These designs are envisioned as a bunker busters.

54 thoughts on “US designing space-based missile interceptors and space sensors to counter hypersonic missiles”

  1. Not seeing how these do anything but create a new arms race that would negate their value. Do people think the Chinese, Russians or even the NKoreans will wave hi and then give up as these things fly relatively low over their launch sites (as they must, if they’re to target boost phase)? This is a fine recipe for creating the conditions for a Kessler Cascade, as potential opponents build up their anti-sat capacity.

  2. Not seeing how these do anything but create a new arms race that would negate their value. Do people think the Chinese Russians or even the NKoreans will wave hi and then give up as these things fly relatively low over their launch sites (as they must if they’re to target boost phase)? This is a fine recipe for creating the conditions for a Kessler Cascade as potential opponents build up their anti-sat capacity.

  3. ICBM apogee is 750nm, much higher than an orbital platform at LEO. This is one aspect of what makes orbital KKV complicated: “How high do you put this thing?” because if you want it for boost phase, you need it in LEO or even lower to guarantee you can hit it in time. If you want something for mid-course defense layering, it needs to be higher.

  4. Your biggest problem with a glide vehicle is turn rate and descent rate. Detection is not much of a problem, it’s the interceptor’s ability to match its maneuvers, both at apogee and for as long as it can remain hypersonic. That’s why a rocket boosted boost-glide vehicle is really just a bandaid, and its very hard to analyze from the sky whether it’s really going to be a serious game changer to BMD – because as soon as its booster burns out, its back to being an IRBM or ICBM RV, as far as the interceptor(s) care. Once it re-enters and is on terminal phase, it’s as susceptible as anything else. An air breathing hypersonic craft has the ability to defeat all layers of BMD. That’s where the threat lies.

  5. ICBM apogee is 750nm much higher than an orbital platform at LEO. This is one aspect of what makes orbital KKV complicated: How high do you put this thing?”” because if you want it for boost phase”” you need it in LEO or even lower to guarantee you can hit it in time. If you want something for mid-course defense layering”” it needs to be higher.”””

  6. Your biggest problem with a glide vehicle is turn rate and descent rate. Detection is not much of a problem it’s the interceptor’s ability to match its maneuvers both at apogee and for as long as it can remain hypersonic. That’s why a rocket boosted boost-glide vehicle is really just a bandaid and its very hard to analyze from the sky whether it’s really going to be a serious game changer to BMD – because as soon as its booster burns out its back to being an IRBM or ICBM RV as far as the interceptor(s) care. Once it re-enters and is on terminal phase it’s as susceptible as anything else. An air breathing hypersonic craft has the ability to defeat all layers of BMD. That’s where the threat lies.

  7. They would need to be close but not necessarily directly over the launch site. Just some back of the envelope estimates – the SM3 Block IIA range is 1350m, LEO is 425 right, so assume some maneuvering, probably time to target is going to be a bigger issue with the orbital plane being very far from launch sites than the range. There might be a sweet spot, for instance the orbital plane could just graze the Philippine Sea, Japan, off the coast of Vladivostok. But then ofc Russia will probably have a lot more to say about it than DPRK because you now have a way to shoot down SLBMs and ICBMs launched from Eastern Russia. So your point stands, really.

  8. They would need to be close but not necessarily directly over the launch site. Just some back of the envelope estimates – the SM3 Block IIA range is 1350m LEO is 425 right so assume some maneuvering probably time to target is going to be a bigger issue with the orbital plane being very far from launch sites than the range. There might be a sweet spot for instance the orbital plane could just graze the Philippine Sea Japan off the coast of Vladivostok. But then ofc Russia will probably have a lot more to say about it than DPRK because you now have a way to shoot down SLBMs and ICBMs launched from Eastern Russia. So your point stands really.

  9. Not sure that hundreds or thousands of military personnel in space would achieve. Certainly in the 1950’s it was imagined that one day such large numbers of people would be required, but mostly for maintenance and construction. Given the reliability of vacuum tubes back then it was not considered feasible to have space infrastructure without the huge numbers of personnel to keep it going.

  10. Not sure that hundreds or thousands of military personnel in space would achieve.Certainly in the 1950’s it was imagined that one day such large numbers of peoplewould be required but mostly for maintenance and construction. Given the reliabilityof vacuum tubes back then it was not considered feasible to have space infrastructurewithout the huge numbers of personnel to keep it going.

  11. Brian is conflating things again. Suborbital KKV’s (in hit-to-kill and shotgun-close-enough styles) for BMD (where you are fighting in vacuum which is relatively benign for your sensor package) is a world of difference from “rods from god” FOBS, and on top of that with newer tactical boost glide vehicles with depressed trajectories, going after the gliders is tougher than a classic ICBM RV. Damn things doing a barrel roll means you will have a hell of a time seeing and correcting an interceptor trajectory (though recent x-ray comms developments mean transmitting to an interceptor wrapped in a plasma sheath of heat is now sorta feasible).

  12. Brian is conflating things again. Suborbital KKV’s (in hit-to-kill and shotgun-close-enough styles) for BMD (where you are fighting in vacuum which is relatively benign for your sensor package) is a world of difference from rods from god”” FOBS”” and on top of that with newer tactical boost glide vehicles with depressed trajectories”” going after the gliders is tougher than a classic ICBM RV. Damn things doing a barrel roll means you will have a hell of a time seeing and correcting an interceptor trajectory (though recent x-ray comms developments mean transmitting to an interceptor wrapped in a plasma sheath of heat is now sorta feasible).”””

  13. A bit of work has been done on reentry designs in order to reduce drag/heating/energy loss by management of a plasma created ahead of the typical shock-front location. Steerage, power extraction, and propulsion effects in conjunction with plasma manipulation have been investigated. A combination of these abilities might be incorporated in a design.

  14. A bit of work has been done on reentry designs in order to reduce drag/heating/energy loss by management of a plasma created ahead of the typical shock-front location. Steerage power extraction and propulsion effects in conjunction with plasma manipulation have been investigated. A combination of these abilities might be incorporated in a design.

  15. We still call them kill vehicles, but many are not strictly kinetic. No need for the shotgun method or orbital debris concepts anymore. GNC and targeting has improved dramatically.

  16. We still call them kill vehicles but many are not strictly kinetic. No need for the shotgun method or orbital debris concepts anymore. GNC and targeting has improved dramatically.

  17. I worked on this concept in the 1980’s for the “Star Wars” program, whose descendant is the Missile Defense Agency mentioned in the article. Back then we called them “Kinetic Kill Vehicles (KKV), which did their damage by the high relative velocity with the missile. They would number in the hundreds, with orbits arranged to be opposite the direction of the missiles, to increase lethality. Ballistic missiles by their nature fly fairly high in the middle of their flight. That puts them close to low-orbiting platforms from which the KKVs originate. You can trade off targeting accuracy for an umbrella-like structure with dense masses space out on the ribs. This would unfold in flight and increase the effective size of the kill vehicle. An alternate approach is called the “shotgun” method. You have multiple pellets that are dispersed slightly before impact. At the relative velocity of the objects (10-15 km/s), your impact masses are carrying 12-30 times their mass in TNT in kinetic energy. So you don’t need any explosives. You just hit the target with a sufficiently heavy chunk of metal and it is dead.

  18. I worked on this concept in the 1980’s for the Star Wars”” program”””” whose descendant is the Missile Defense Agency mentioned in the article. Back then we called them “”””Kinetic Kill Vehicles (KKV)”” which did their damage by the high relative velocity with the missile. They would number in the hundreds with orbits arranged to be opposite the direction of the missiles”” to increase lethality.Ballistic missiles by their nature fly fairly high in the middle of their flight. That puts them close to low-orbiting platforms from which the KKVs originate. You can trade off targeting accuracy for an umbrella-like structure with dense masses space out on the ribs. This would unfold in flight and increase the effective size of the kill vehicle. An alternate approach is called the “”””shotgun”””” method. You have multiple pellets that are dispersed slightly before impact.At the relative velocity of the objects (10-15 km/s)”””” your impact masses are carrying 12-30 times their mass in TNT in kinetic energy. So you don’t need any explosives. You just hit the target with a sufficiently heavy chunk of metal and it is dead.”””

  19. This recalls me the iconic images of Kubrick’s “2001: Space Odyssey”, the space infrastructure visible shortly after the ape-man throws the bone to space. These are pretty, bucolic images of space stations, showing a more enlightened future. Or are they? Nope. They were supposed to be weapon platforms in orbit. Nuclear ones, before treaties made that future no longer applicable. The irony was lost over time, given the brevity of the scene and the inconspicuous shape of the weapons platforms. More recent movies have been more explicit about that (like the very amusing 90’s movie Space Cowboys). In the end, Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke will be proved right. We still are the same apes from the African Savannah (only with slightly less hair), and we will have weapon platforms in space.

  20. This recalls me the iconic images of Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey””” the space infrastructure visible shortly after the ape-man throws the bone to space. These are pretty bucolic images of space stations showing a more enlightened future. Or are they?Nope. They were supposed to be weapon platforms in orbit. Nuclear ones before treaties made that future no longer applicable.The irony was lost over time given the brevity of the scene and the inconspicuous shape of the weapons platforms. More recent movies have been more explicit about that (like the very amusing 90’s movie Space Cowboys).In the end Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke will be proved right. We still are the same apes from the African Savannah (only with slightly less hair)”” and we will have weapon platforms in space.”””

  21. Military expenses tend to be high, regardless. What is different now is that the existing budget could afford these things by using upcoming technologies, mostly the new reusable launchers.

  22. Military expenses tend to be high regardless. What is different now is that the existing budget could afford these things by using upcoming technologies mostly the new reusable launchers.

  23. They would need to be close but not necessarily directly over the launch site. Just some back of the envelope estimates – the SM3 Block IIA range is 1350m, LEO is 425 right, so assume some maneuvering, probably time to target is going to be a bigger issue with the orbital plane being very far from launch sites than the range. There might be a sweet spot, for instance the orbital plane could just graze the Philippine Sea, Japan, off the coast of Vladivostok. But then ofc Russia will probably have a lot more to say about it than DPRK because you now have a way to shoot down SLBMs and ICBMs launched from Eastern Russia. So your point stands, really.

  24. ICBM apogee is 750nm, much higher than an orbital platform at LEO. This is one aspect of what makes orbital KKV complicated: “How high do you put this thing?” because if you want it for boost phase, you need it in LEO or even lower to guarantee you can hit it in time. If you want something for mid-course defense layering, it needs to be higher.

  25. Your biggest problem with a glide vehicle is turn rate and descent rate. Detection is not much of a problem, it’s the interceptor’s ability to match its maneuvers, both at apogee and for as long as it can remain hypersonic. That’s why a rocket boosted boost-glide vehicle is really just a bandaid, and its very hard to analyze from the sky whether it’s really going to be a serious game changer to BMD – because as soon as its booster burns out, its back to being an IRBM or ICBM RV, as far as the interceptor(s) care. Once it re-enters and is on terminal phase, it’s as susceptible as anything else. An air breathing hypersonic craft has the ability to defeat all layers of BMD. That’s where the threat lies.

  26. Not seeing how these do anything but create a new arms race that would negate their value. Do people think the Chinese, Russians or even the NKoreans will wave hi and then give up as these things fly relatively low over their launch sites (as they must, if they’re to target boost phase)?
    This is a fine recipe for creating the conditions for a Kessler Cascade, as potential opponents build up their anti-sat capacity.

  27. Not sure that hundreds or thousands of military personnel in space would achieve.
    Certainly in the 1950’s it was imagined that one day such large numbers of people
    would be required, but mostly for maintenance and construction. Given the reliability
    of vacuum tubes back then it was not considered feasible to have space infrastructure
    without the huge numbers of personnel to keep it going.

  28. Brian is conflating things again. Suborbital KKV’s (in hit-to-kill and shotgun-close-enough styles) for BMD (where you are fighting in vacuum which is relatively benign for your sensor package) is a world of difference from “rods from god” FOBS, and on top of that with newer tactical boost glide vehicles with depressed trajectories, going after the gliders is tougher than a classic ICBM RV. Damn things doing a barrel roll means you will have a hell of a time seeing and correcting an interceptor trajectory (though recent x-ray comms developments mean transmitting to an interceptor wrapped in a plasma sheath of heat is now sorta feasible).

  29. A bit of work has been done on reentry designs in order to reduce drag/heating/energy loss by management of a plasma created ahead of the typical shock-front location. Steerage, power extraction, and propulsion effects in conjunction with plasma manipulation have been investigated. A combination of these abilities might be incorporated in a design.

  30. We still call them kill vehicles, but many are not strictly kinetic. No need for the shotgun method or orbital debris concepts anymore. GNC and targeting has improved dramatically.

  31. I worked on this concept in the 1980’s for the “Star Wars” program, whose descendant is the Missile Defense Agency mentioned in the article. Back then we called them “Kinetic Kill Vehicles (KKV), which did their damage by the high relative velocity with the missile. They would number in the hundreds, with orbits arranged to be opposite the direction of the missiles, to increase lethality.

    Ballistic missiles by their nature fly fairly high in the middle of their flight. That puts them close to low-orbiting platforms from which the KKVs originate. You can trade off targeting accuracy for an umbrella-like structure with dense masses space out on the ribs. This would unfold in flight and increase the effective size of the kill vehicle. An alternate approach is called the “shotgun” method. You have multiple pellets that are dispersed slightly before impact.

    At the relative velocity of the objects (10-15 km/s), your impact masses are carrying 12-30 times their mass in TNT in kinetic energy. So you don’t need any explosives. You just hit the target with a sufficiently heavy chunk of metal and it is dead.

  32. This recalls me the iconic images of Kubrick’s “2001: Space Odyssey”, the space infrastructure visible shortly after the ape-man throws the bone to space.

    These are pretty, bucolic images of space stations, showing a more enlightened future. Or are they?

    Nope. They were supposed to be weapon platforms in orbit. Nuclear ones, before treaties made that future no longer applicable.

    The irony was lost over time, given the brevity of the scene and the inconspicuous shape of the weapons platforms. More recent movies have been more explicit about that (like the very amusing 90’s movie Space Cowboys).

    In the end, Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke will be proved right. We still are the same apes from the African Savannah (only with slightly less hair), and we will have weapon platforms in space.

  33. Military expenses tend to be high, regardless. What is different now is that the existing budget could afford these things by using upcoming technologies, mostly the new reusable launchers.

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