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U.S. would need a mega-constellation to counter China’s hypersonic weapons
Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin: “Our response has to be a proliferated space sensor layer, possibly based off commercial space developments."

The Pentagon admittedly is already five to 10 years behind in the development of an anti-missile system to thwart advanced hypersonic weapons that are now being tested by China and Russia.

The good news for the Defense Department is that the commercial space technology boom that is fueling the development of mega-constellations could help the military reach that goal. The Pentagon is studying options to build a space-based surveillance network to fill blind spots in the nation’s current defenses — which were designed to counter ballistic missiles that fly on a predictable arch-shaped pattern.

To detect and track hypersonic weapons — which fly into space at supersonic speeds and then descend back down to Earth directly on top of targets — the answer is a large constellation of small satellites.

“Our response has to be a proliferated space sensor layer, possibly based off commercial space developments,” said Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin.

The hypersonic threat brings a “new urgency” that the United States has not seen since the Cold War and that demands a different type of thinking about the architecture, Griffin told reporters on Wednesday at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium. The only way to provide global coverage and not go bankrupt installing radars on the ground is to go to space.

Griffin cautioned that the traditional approach to developing “exquisite” military satellites is not going to work in this case. The Pentagon already has a sophisticated network of early warning satellites that detect missile launches. Another layer of sensors will be needed in the future for “persistent, timely global, low-latency surveillance to track and provide fire control for hypersonic threats.”

Details such as how many satellites, in what orbits, at what altitudes have yet to be worked out. The Missile Defense Agency, which Griffin oversees, was designated the Pentagon’s “executive agent” for hypersonic defense.

Griffin said the United States for decades has conducted its own hypersonic weapons development but chose to not weaponize the technology. “Our enemies have, so we have to respond,” he said. “The first step in that response absolutely has to be a sensor layer from space.”

There are no alternatives, “unless you plan to wallpaper the Earth with radars,” he said. This is not a mission that can be done realistically from the ground or the oceans. “You would need a lot of radars that are very expensive and themselves become targets,” Griffin said. “That’s not an acceptable defensive posture. The only way to see these things coming is from space.”

The military’s early warning satellites in geosynchronous earth orbit cannot do this mission. “Hypersonic vehicles are hard to see from high orbit because they are not as bright. They’re a factor of 10 or more dimmer than strategic missiles. So we have to get closer to see them and track them.”

‘This can be done’
Posted by: 3dc 2018-08-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=520447