China Fires Land-Launch CJ 1000 Hypersonic Scramjet

By Kris Osborn, Warrior

The People’s Liberation Army claims to be surging far ahead in the realm of hypersonic weapons in terms of both Hypersonic Glide Vehicle Projectiles and scramjet powered weapons. Many around the world saw a full arsenal of hypersonic projectiles on display at the PRCs Victory Day military parade this past September, some of which had never before been seen in public. 

Now, a Chinese government-backed newspaper called Shipborne Weapons claims the PLA has operationalized a first-of-its-kind “land” fired hypersonic scramjet capable of delivering more explosives over a longer range than any previous scramjet.  Unlike Hypersonic Glide Vehicles which, as boost glide weapons, are powered up to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere before using pure speed of descent to destroy a target, a scramjet powered weapon uses an engine to sustain hypersonic speeds for shorter distances at lower altitudes. An essay in Interesting Engineering cites the Chinese newspaper describing the CJ-1000 as a weapon mounted atop a 10-wheel diesel-electric hybrid transporter-erector-launcher. . “During a sustained cruise, the scramjet-powered missile reaches speeds of Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound. At this speed, and given the advantages provided by its scramjet design, the CJ-1000 could render any traditional air defense system powerless,” the Shipborne Weapons article states. 

Scramjet vs HGVs

HGVs are known as maneuvering, difficult to track high-speed projectile flying less predictable or known trajectories such as those of a typical ballistic missile. Scramjets, by contrast, are air breathing projectiles which travel shorter ranges than HGVs. The PLA now claims to have developed the CJ-1000, a scramjet-powered missile able to travel unprecedented ranges of 2,500km, according to a write up in Interesting Engineering. As a land-fired weapon, the CJ-1000 would be capable of carrying more fuel and explosives than air or surface-ship launched weapons, so it does seem feasible that the weapon could introduce new measures of lethality. 

The PRC-backed newspaper claims that the CJ-1000 would render any modern air-defense system “powerless,” yet there are many variables impacting this equation which might inspire a measure of hesitation regarding this possibility.  The Pentagon is currently fast-tracking a number of defensive systems engineered to track and intercept hypersonic projectiles, some of which are now reaching substantial levels of maturity. The primary challenge with hypersonics is quite simply a question of speed, as the weapons can travel from one radar aperture or field of view to another so quickly that ground or air based radar simply cannot establish a “continuous track” on the weapon sufficient to intercept. 

Hypersonic Defenses

The rapid proliferation of emerging Medium and Low Earth Orbit satellites, however, are changing this equation by generating breakthrough kinds of high-throughput, lower altitude networking designed to help establish that “continuous” target track. Scramjets also fly at a lower altitude than HGVs and typically do not travel as far, so integrated groups of satellites might be well positioned to attempt targeting them for possible intercept. 

There is also substantial modernization taking place in the realm of air defense radar and networking technologies. The Patriot missile defense radar technology, for example, can now track and support intercept of two maneuvering cruise missiles at one time. The U.S. Army is also breaking through with a technology called Integrated Battle Command System, a networked web of “nodes” dispersed across multiple platforms. IBCS, as it is called, connects Patriot missile batteries with Sentinel Radar systems, ground-based command and control and even aerial nodes such as an F-35 to exchange threat information across multiple domains in real time. While it has yet to be established as a system capable of defending hypersonic weapons, the architecture to track fast-moving targets across domains is evolving quickly. 

Long Range Hypersonic Weapon & HAWC

The Pentagon is not necessarily that far behind with its own hypersonic weapons, depending upon the credibility of Chinese claims regarding the range and speed of the CJ-1000. The Army is now deploying its Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, a ground-fired, mobile hypersonic weapon capable of traveling on a C-17 to forward deploy. However, the LRHW is a boost-glide HGV weapon, and the Army does not currently operate a land-fired, air-breathing scramjet-powered hypersonic weapon. The U.S. Air Force and DARPA, however, are surging forward with an air-launched scramjet weapon called the Hypersonic Air Breathing Weapons Concept (HAWC) being prepared for operational service by 2027. 

Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in 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 Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University