Story ID: 485
Tackling the Hypersonic Threat to Europe
By: David Donald
Caption: MBDA has been studying the technological challenges associated with countering maneuvering hypersonic missiles.
Word Count: 484
A European consortium led by MBDA received a tender invitation in May for a European Defence Fund program to examine an interceptor system that can defend against advanced maneuvering hypersonic strike weapons. Known as Hydis2 (hypersonic defense interceptor study), the project has a three-year concept phase, during which three concept architectures—two with three motor stages and one with two—are being evaluated prior to the selection of one for further maturation.
Along with MBDA's involvement through activities in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, the consortium covers 19 partners in 14 European nations, including the Netherlands. MBDA has worked on counter-hypersonic defense technology for several years with its Aquila project and already has amassed considerable knowledge of the threat nature and the issues involved in intercepting vehicles traveling at speeds of Mach 5 or greater.
Some of that knowledge has come from recent experiences in Ukraine, where Russian forces have fired hypersonic air-launched Kinzhal missiles and Iskander ballistic/maneuvering missiles. However, they represent a fairly primitive form of hypersonic threat because their primarily ballistic trajectories are relatively predictable until the terminal phase. The same holds partially true of the Chinese DF-21 and DF-26 missiles, which employ maneuvering re-entry vehicles (MaRVs) but with still limited degrees of maneuverability following a ballistic approach.
The principal future threat—and the greatest technological challenge—comes from hypersonic glide vehicles, represented today by the Chinese DF-17 and hypersonic cruise missiles such as Russia’s Zircon. They typically fly in the 30,000- to 50,000-ft altitude space, exploiting the gap between the current endo-atmospheric defensive systems—Standard Missile (SM)-2 and -6, PAC-3—and the high endo-/exo-atmospheric defenses—SM-3 and THAAD.
Moreover, the weapons feature significant freedom of movement, making trajectory predictions almost impossible. Engaging the weapons in the terminal phase close to the target is within the realm of existing systems such as Aster, but that is viewed as a last line of defense and intercepting the weapons while they remain at cruise altitude is considered far more desirable.
However, the highly maneuverable nature of the weapons and their speed makes it almost impossible to maintain an area defense without firing numerous interceptors at one incoming missile to cover all of its possible target approach routes. That can result in the saturation and rapid exhaustion of defenses and would prove costly.
Along with examining new methods of providing timely warning and tracking, one of the key technologies under development involves how to avoid those drawbacks by using deep learning and artificial intelligence to optimize the prediction of likely intercept points. That can be enhanced by delaying interceptor launch as long as possible, which, by definition, implies that the interceptor itself also must be of hypersonic design.