(Washington, D.C.) Are Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and contested areas of the South China Sea all extremely vulnerable to a massive People’s Liberation Army hypersonic missile attack? Potentially, as the PLA is known to be testing a variety of credible and potentially quite effective hypersonic weapons such as its ship and air-launched YJ-21 missile which has been fired from a warship and carried on a PLA Air Force H-6K bomber.
The prospect of this kind of attack lends further credibility to the Pentagon’s often discussed “fait accompli” concept, a threat possibility in which the PRC would attempt to annex Taiwan so quickly that US and allied responses would be unable to respond. This concern, cited several times in the Pentagon’s annual China report, presents a compelling need to accelerate hypersonic defenses. An existing US-Japanese collaborative effort, described by the Pentagon several years ago, has been working to develop and fast-track a high-speed, next-generation “Glide Phase Interceptor” weapon able to counter Chinese hypersonic weapons.
There does appear to be progress, as an essay published by the Missile Defense Agency reports that efforts to refine the Preliminary Design, test, further develop and “build” the GPI are now surging into the next development phase with GPI-manufacturer Northrop Grumman.
“Today’s decision represents a turning point for hypersonic glide phase defense,” said Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, MDA Director. “
The MDA essay specified that the surge forward with GPI is based upon “ the GPI concept’s technology maturity, high fidelity model performance predictions, detailed technical maturation plans and industry-provided cost and schedule proposals.”
The reference to “high-fidelity model performance predictions” seems quite significant as it appears to pertain to computer simulations and digital modeling and testing of weapons performance parameters. The Air Force and MDA have thus far achieved success with an ability to use precise computer simulation modeling to replicate weapons performance. An essay from GPI-maker Northrop Grumman does in fact explain that digital engineering has been successfully used to accelerate development of the system’s critical technologies.
“Complete flight experiments ahead of schedule leveraging the company’s own flight-proven systems used digital engineering practices to connect the entire GPI program to accelerate design processes and develop interceptor capabilities faster and more efficiently,” Northrop’s essay on GPI explains.
