There are some claims that surface to air missiles can shoot down SpaceX Starships when the US military starts using them in a few years for cargo missions. The people who make these claims have not looked at the specifications of surface to air missiles. A SpaceX Starship will be much harder to shootdown than an ICBM. It is like an ICBM with massive course change capabilities.
A shoulder launched surface to air missiles has a top speed of mach 2.5 and can reach an altitude up to 2 miles. The kill zone for shoulder launched surface to air missiles is up to 1 miles. They are trying to hit helicopters or airplanes that are flying low.
A SAM-5 surface to air missile is a larger missile with a top speed of mach 4 and reaches an altitude up to 19 miles. Passenger airplanes have a cruising altitude of 33,000 to 40,000 feet (6-8 miles).
The Russian S-200 SAM has a maximum altitude of 180,000 feet (55 km or 34 miles).
Regular surface to air missiles can target any SpaceX launch towers or Starships on the ground. They would basically be shooting surface to surface.
High Altitude ICBM Interceptors
ICBM interceptors are trying to hit ICBMs that have used up their fuel and are just dropping to their targets. This is an overhyped capability, where the ICBM has no counter-measures. The tests barely worked when the interceptor crews were given advance notice and clear ICBM flight plans. The tests still often failed. It is generally expected that it will take four interceptors to have high probability of taking out an ICBM just dropping to its target. The interceptors will have to be directly in the flight path of the ICBM.
As of early 2019, the Russian army had around 200 THAAD rockets and 40 launchers. A typical THAAD battery has nine launchers that can load 72 interceptor missiles. The enhanced S-300VM/VMK is capable of intercepting ballistic missiles with a range of 2,500 km re-entry speeds of 4.5 km/s, whereas the S-400 is claimed to be capable of intercepting ballistic missiles with a range of 3,500 km which equates to re-entry speeds of 4.8 to 5 km/s. Russia’s main anti-ICBM capability is around Moscow. If SpaceX does not fly Starship within 600 miles of Moscow then most of Russia THAAD capability is avoided. Russia Moscow THAAD are nuclear tipped missiles. Russia uses some nuclear ICBMs as interceptors.
The US THAAD interceptor has a reported maximum speed of mach 8, and THAAD has repeatedly proven it can intercept descending missiles. THAAD has a top altitude of 93 miles. The operational range is 120 miles.
As of 2018, the US has seven active Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries.
A THAAD battery has:
Seven fire units
Two mobile tactical stations
Six launchers
360 interceptor missiles
Two spares for each of the fire units, mobile tactical stations, and launchers.
Here is the flight altitude and speeds for a shorter range Starship flight. In about 2 minutes, SpaceX Starship gets to over 60 miles of altitude. SpaceX has talked about 39 minutes to fly from New York to Shanghai. This is speeds about mach 16 (over 12000 mph).
In order to shoot down SpaceX Starship, the Starship would have to fly towards the known THAAD batteries and perform no course changes after detecting THAADs in the air. The SpaceX Starship can turn on its engines again while in the air. They will do this to land. In 30 seconds of thrust, a SpaceX Starship can change where it is going to 100 miles. Starship can get out of range of THAAD and avoid interception.
According to a 2021 CBO estimate, each additional Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery costs about $800 million to procure and $30 million per year to operate. SpaceX Starships under mass production of hundreds per year will cost about $5 to 10 million each.
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I am all in favor of anything that builds Starship infrastructure. However, I have looked at the optimal use of Starship as a carrier of kinetic missiles (Starship Sentinel – tracks of 18 Starships circling designated orbital paths, one within 5 minutes of any longitude on earth – 8 to 16 tracks, 336 interceptors per Starship) with pulsed rocket propulsion, based on the JATM air-to air missile and the F-35 AN/APG-81 radar, to intercept ICBM and SLBM missiles in the boost, entry into midcourse and exit from midcourse phases. Yes, there are adaptations needed to the fighter plane technology. However, relevant to this conversation – the reason for this strategy is that you can target contracted space. Once an ICBM – in this case the model is the SS-18 – releases its MIRV’s in the early midcourse, the difficulty of targeting them in the meat of the midcourse phase becomes problematic. However, the MIRV’s have to contract around points of atmospheric reentry relative to the targets they are aiming at. Shooting gallery.
Analogously, while the starship is maneuverable and fast in the early portion of reentry, they are aiming at a fixed point – a landing target. They are exceptionally vulnerable when landing, and on the launch stand. Whereas they are practically invulnerable in the role of missile defense, and, for some offensive operations related to carrier defense.
With that logic. Isn’t any troop carrier, helicopter, airplane, and such vulnerable when landing? What makes Starship any different?
How would an EMP pulse effect avionics on Starship? Small Neutron SDI?
Military aircraft and satellites have been hardened to EMP for over four decades.
Starship can be well protected from missile/antisat threats in orbit or in Space on ballistic arcs by carrying a megawatt laser and having the ability to maneuver. It doesn’t need to itself deliver cargo to hostile areas, it can use an orbital drop system. Consider something like Stoke Space second stage as model for this but with less propellant. https://www.stokespace.com/rocket/ Starship could carry 4 of these with the diameter of Falcon9- sort of cargo MIRVs. Besides being able to land cargo vertically, they could be road transported for reuse. They could also deliver missiles and drones mid-air like Rapid Dragon.
The Starship lands at a very slow speed (and goes into the hover to land on those stubby legs ) – that is when it is most vulnerable.
The fueling for it is complex and extensive – easily sabotaged.
It wont be a target transporting military cargo.
You dont see other military transports as worthy of being targets unless over enemy airspace.
They will be targets IF uses as orbital weapon platforms.
In that case, the method will probably be to drop a cloud of particles at it’s path.
At orbital velocities, that’s fatal.
And it will be fatal to Earth’s satellite infrastructure and space stations.
Keep our orbit FREE of weapon platforms. Or use some highly unusual orbit, where Kessler Syndrome wont happen.
Has anyone looked at the logistics trail of fueling these monster rockets?
The supply of LOX and CH4/LNG along with LN2 is massive for 1 launch.
For Musk and SpaceX to fuel 1 moon mission is beyond possible in todays world.
They will need SHIP LOADS of product in harbor to fuel their dreams. Semi trucks won’t be able to deal with demand. Roads, travel times, off-load times, safety, DOT rules will be a huge bottle-necks.
One, maybe 2 launches a month maximum from Texas.
How do you imagine the liquid oxygen is made? If it cannot be shipped is there some other way to solve this problem? Like making it on site?
Claiming it is impossible makes no sense. It is like claiming you are knowledgeable and the SpaceX engineers are not. That seems unlikely right? I mean they are rocket scientists.
As for the methane did you miss the reporting on them wanting to make it … on site?
None of this is hard or even impossible. It is in fact solved engineering problems that have been in production for decades.
This is clear even to a fool. The Starship is practically invulnerable, especially if it is refueled. Any rocket launching from the ground will have insufficient energy to correct its course and aim at it. Any cloud of fragments will be too small to cover a delta S of hundreds of km. It is durable, it is made of fairly thick metal, so the flow of gamma radiation, charged particles and plasma will not seriously damage it.
If you use two senior ships – one hangs in orbit and the second carries weapons and fuel, then it will be an almost absolute weapon. You can destroy all enemy satellites with the very first salvo of orbit orbit missiles, and then circle over it with impunity and constantly drop bombs similar to ICBM warheads
Intercepting missiles do not have to be fast. In the case of fast moving targets like starship and satellites it is enough to disperse a cloud of debris along the trajectoey
Someone has to say it, as well might be me, as it was apparently my comment that addressed this matter before.
1. China tested anti-satellite missile in 2007, made a big mess at 865 km orbit.
2. Russia tested (more like demonstrated) anti-satellite missile in 2021 at about 480 km altitude, scared the ISS crew into spacesuits for a few orbits.
All that is far above LEO. These are only the recent tests, only public and consequential (messy). There were others, mentioned only in reports no one reads, where at least one Chinese test was mentioned as a GEO shot with an intentional near-miss and no blast (no mess, everyone needs GEO clean). That was years ago, before all the recent events, and of course unconfirmed, not public, but USA has orbital tracking and can see such unwelcome activities.
Before that, there were ASM-135 in USA and IS in USSR, pure anti-satellite systems with confirmed intercepts, with IS on active duty untill 1993. There were also other systems, less “kosher” shall we say, such as Spartan (not the main man in Halo, but a big space missile for shooting down ICBMs in space) in USA and 51T6 (similar missile) in USSR – that is space missile technology from 50+ years ago. Since then their nuclear warheads became less relevant, and precision guidance for them became more practical. In short, the only obstacle for shooting down any suborbital or orbital vehicle today is the lack of will, the reluctance of doing it first, and an abundance of vested interest – everyone likes their precious satellites, and everyone is equally vulnerable to their untimely loss. It is safe to say that anyone capable of launching an orbital vehicle today, is capable of destroying an orbital vehicle – sum total of commonly available computation, telescopes and radio links are far, far, far in excess of what is required for that purpose.
Enjoy your new space era while it lasts.
Maybe it’d be best to just let the Starship land then send a fancy hypersonic missile to meet it on the ground.
It actually isn’t that high value of a target.
Also patriot shoots down the hypersonics.
It isn’t a high value target? It’s the largest rocket/fairing ever built and could change the landscape of warfare in ways we haven’t seen since the introduction of aircraft carriers in the early 20th century.
It isn’t that high value of a target because it doesn’t cost that much compared to say Raiders, B2s, literally every Navy bluewater boat, F22s, F35s, etc.
I mean please math. A F22 costs 3x as much as a Starship.
I suspect that, if reports about the military preparing to use them for both cargo and troop transport are true, their priority as targets may increase. A massive swarm of explosive drones may be a better strategy against them but that isn’t without challenges either.
That’s IF you land this thing even near enemy lines, or behind them. But why would you?
Why land it AT all for the purpose of deploying cargo? Do a suborbital burn and deploy your cargo and boost back forward to a safer LZ. You could even deploy troops at that sort of high velocity if they are in pods