Pentagon’s Emerging Glide Phase Interceptor Will Destroy Hypersonic Missiles

Related File Video Above: B-1B Hypersonic Weapons Bay

*ICYMI A Top Warrior Maven Article of 2021

By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven

(Washington, D.C.) Could there truly be a way to track and intercept or destroy enemy hypersonic missiles speeding at more than five times the speed of sound while skipping along the upper boundaries of the earth’s atmosphere before descending upon targets?

Glide Phase Interceptor

Maybe, depending upon the speed and success with which the Missile Defense Agency is able to develop a new generation of hypersonic defense called the Glide Phase Interceptor, a developmental program to engineer a high altitude, long-range missile able to fire from the ground or deck of Navy ship to “take out” a traveling hypersonic missile during phases of its flight when it might be more vulnerable to destruction.

A hypersonic boost-glide weapon, for example, is thrust up into the atmosphere to glide at hypersonic speeds before descending upon its target at unparalleled speed. It is at this “glide” point in the missile’s trajectory where there is the best opportunity to intercept it, just prior to its turning down into its ultimate high-speed descent.

“So when you’re in the glide phase — which is higher up from the terminal, right, where a hypersonic vehicle is likely in its most vulnerable phase — that’s actually a pretty tough environment to be in. And you can’t take an air defense weapon and operate it there nor can you take a space weapon like an SM-3 and operate there, it’s just a different environment,” Navy Vice Adm. Jon Hill, Director, Missile Defense Agency told reporters, according to a Pentagon transcript.