by Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
With a heightened sense of urgency in response to the existing and fast-growing Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons threat, Congress is directing the Pentagon to massively “fast-track” its emerging hypersonic-weapons defense technology called the Glide Phase Interceptor.
The GPI program, now progressing with the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency and two industry partners, represents a high-tech, cutting edge effort to establish a “continuous track” on incoming or attacking hypersonic weapons and intercept or destroy them before they can hit their target. Using a collection of medium and low-earth orbit satellites.
The recently approved 2024 National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress mandates that the Pentagon achieve operational status with its GPI by 2029, a year earlier than currently planned. This mandate revs up the pressure on the MDA and its industry partners, Lockheed and Raytheon, to test and prepare the weapon for combat on a fast-tracked timetable.
The legislation further directs that the MDA field “not fewer than 12” GPIs by 2030 and as many as 25 by 2040. Full operational capability is required to be accomplished by 2032.
Satellite Hypersonic Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor System
Perhaps the most critical element of the legislation involves the need for a critical synergy or connectedness between the interceptor itself and a space-based collection of satellites capable of transmitting target track details to the interceptor. The Northrop Grumman system, called the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS), involves a “meshed” network of Medium and Low Earth Orbit satellites able to operate as disaggregated, yet networked “node” capable to establish a target track on otherwise “beyond-line-of-sight” targets such as fast moving hypersonic weapons. This network of satellites is engineered to track the flight trajectory of an incoming hypersonic weapon as it transits from one radar aperture to another. This is the critical challenge, as hypersonic weapons are known to travel so fast that it is, at the moment, not possible to maintain a “continuous” track given the speed with which a hypersonic projectile transits from one “field of regard” to another. This challenge is exactly what HBTSS is engineered to address.
US Air Force Research Lab on Hypersonics
Several years ago, the former director of the MDA Vice Adm. Jon Hill, told reporters at the time that HBTSS was on a path to launch “two interoperable satellites built by two separate industry partners.”
“So the idea is to keep competition early, given the complexity of the mission. It is the only program within the space portfolio that provides fire control quality data down to a weapon system like Glide Phase Interceptor,” Hill said, according to a Pentagon transcript.
The GPIs themselves will fire from US Navy warship VLS (Vertical Launch Systems) and integrate with Aegis Combat System, yet the targeting will initially come from the HBTSS satellite system.
Russia & China Hypersonic Threats
Defenses against hypersonic weapons can’t possibly arrive soon enough, in large measure due to the pace with which the People’s Republic of China and Russia claim to currently have operational hypersonic weapons. Russia, for example, claims it has the nuclear-capable Avangard hypersonic projectile as well as its Zircon hypersonic cruise missile. The specifics of these weapons in terms of performance parameters, guidance and precise range may be difficult to discern, and certainly Russia has a history of “hyping” its weapons, yet the threat is indeed regarded as extremely credible by US weapons developers.
The PRC’s progress with hypersonic weapons is potentially even more alarming, as the PLA Navy has on several occasions fired off a ship-fired hypersonic weapon called the YJ-21. More recently, in a somewhat surprising fast-paced or potentially unexpected move, the PLA Air Force deployed an air-launched variant of the YJ-21 hypersonic weapon from its H6K bomber, introducing yet another previously unknown threat dimension.
Kris Osborn is the Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
