More on HGV Defenses
YAL-1A airborne laser in flight with the mirror unstowed
Photo Credit:Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Missile Defense Agency
This is the third post in a series on the threat of Chinese and Russian Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs), and prospective U.S. defenses against them. Traveling at Mach 10 (ten times the speed of sound, approximately 7000 mph) and maneuverable on reentry into the atmosphere, HGVs pose unique problems for defensive systems attempting to shoot them down.
In the series’ first post, The Menace of Hypersonic Glide Vehicles, publicly known characteristics of the Chinese and Russian HGVs were discussed, as well as U.S. attempts to catch up. In the second post, Defenses Against Hypersonic Glide Vehicles, the problems of a defensive system trying to shoot down an HGV traveling at Mach 10 and maneuvering were related. This was followed by a discussion of an existing U.S. ABM system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and the upgrades it would need to defend against HGVs. However, the speed of a THAAD missile is limited by the exhaust speed of gasses propelling the rocket, so a second type of defense using electromagnetic rail guns that is not so limited was explored.
In this post we will take a look at high-powered laser weapons systems as a possible defense. Following that I will relate the reactions of politicians to the HGV problem.
High Power Laser Systems
One very attractive aspect of a laser system is that energy to destroy the HGV travels from the laser to the target at the speed of light. Then, so long as the defenders know from moment to moment where the target is and could point the laser with appropriate precision, there would be no way for an HGV to evade the laser beam, no matter how maneuverable it was. However, one of several big drawbacks is that, depending on the frequency of the electromagnetic beam, the radiation could be scattered and dissipated by clouds, rain, or aerosol particulates.
A practical answer to the problems posed by the atmosphere is to base the laser in a large aircraft that flies above atmospheric disturbances. In the photo above you can see one testbed for such a laser system, the YAL-1, an Air Force program in existence from 1996 until February 2012. The laser was a megawatt class chemical oxygen-iodine laser that was mounted in the nose of a modified Boeing 747. During 2010 the system demonstrated a capability to track and destroy test missile targets.
For a number of reasons, primarily because the laser was not powerful enough to destroy missiles except at relatively small ranges, the project was canceled in 2012. Concerning his recommendation to cancel the program, Secretary of Defense Gates said,
I don’t know anybody at the Department of Defense, Mr. Tiahrt, who thinks that this program should, or would, ever be operationally deployed. The reality is that you would need a laser something like 20 to 30 times more powerful than the chemical laser in the plane right now to be able to get any distance from the launch site to fire….So, right now the ABL would have to orbit inside the borders of Iran in order to be able to try and use its laser to shoot down that missile in the boost phase. And if you were to operationalize this you would be looking at 10 to 20 747s, at a billion and a half dollars apiece, and $100 million a year to operate. And there’s nobody in uniform that I know who believes that this is a workable concept.
Originally, the YAL-1 was designed to engage tactical ballistic missiles, which fly slower than ICBMs and have a shorter range. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has been studying the possibility of deploying a high-power laser in a very high altitude, stealthy, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to shoot down an ICBM in its boost phase. Flying at an altitude of around 65,000 feet (12.3 miles or 19.8 km), the suggested MDA system would fire an electric laser at megawatt levels at a relatively close range (“tens of kilometers”) at a boost-phase missile. The YAL-1 laser required 121 pounds of payload per kilowatt of laser output. The MDA wants to reduce that using an electric laser to 4.4 to 11 pounds per kilowatt, for a total of 5000 pounds for a megawatt. The required weight of the drone carrying the laser would then probably be somewhat heavier than the MQ-9 Reaper, one variant of which has a take-off weight of around 7,000 lb. with a payload of 3,000 lb. With no crew to rest and with an electric laser that could be powered by the drone’s fuel, a UAV with in-flight refueling could have a nearly perpetual endurance.
An ABM system that included stealthy drones with electric lasers attacking ICBMs/HGVs in the launch vehicle’s boost-phase, and rail guns for terminal phase point defense would have an excellent chance to succeed.
Political Reactions
As you would expect, Democrats generally do not want to spend any more money for defense in general, let alone for ABM defense. This obviously would include not wanting to pay for defense against HGVs. Shortly after President Obama released his fiscal 2016 defense budget, several potential enemies demonstrated their capabilities to threaten us with nuclear weapons. According to the Wall Street Journal,
Pakistan tested a nuclear-capable Ra’ad short-range missile, Russia announced plans to test a new RS-26 intercontinental ballistic missile, Iran launched a satellite into space and North Korea blasted five antiship missiles into the Sea of Japan. Each volley underscored the bad news that Mr. Obama’s budget again shortchanges U.S. missile defenses.
Mr. Obama’s overall federal government budget was for $4 trillion with $612 billion for defense. That puts defense expenditures at 15.3% of the federal budget and at 3.4% of GDP (which is currently about $18.2 trillion). Of that, Obama wants to allocate $8.1 billion for the MDA, which is 0.20% of Obama’s budget and 0.045% of GDP. This matches Obama’s rhetoric when he said in 2001 before he was a prominent politician, “I don’t support a missile defense system.”
Democratic senators and congressmen are following Obama’s lead in this, although they rarely dare to speak publicly against ABM defense due to recent test successes of ABM systems. The WSJ reports, “But engineers have proved they can hit a bullet with a bullet: 65 of 81 U.S. antimissile tests have succeeded since 2001, while Israel’s Iron Dome has excelled (aided by U.S. funding).” Instead, Democrats would prefer to use ABM defense capabilities as a bargaining chip with bullies like Vladimir Putin, who has complained in 2010 that ABM systems “undermine our nuclear capabilities.”
Well, great! Is that not what every American (and every European for that matter) should hope for? Rather than negotiating away our capabilities, should we not be increasing them? With Putin’s Russia threatening the Scandinavian and Baltic Sea states, as well as NATO, Eastern European nations and the Ukraine, we have an increasingly urgent need to counter Russia’s nuclear capabilities. In addition, there are the increasing ballistic missile threats from China, North Korea, and Iran. According to a Pentagon intelligence report, China has the world’s “most active and diverse ballistic missile program.”
Also as you would expect, Republicans would like to make missile defense a priority. As a 2014 Forbes post, Six Reasons Republican Resurgence Will Make Missile Defense A Priority, points out, “missile-defense technology has come a long way” since Reagan’s visionary space-based missile defense program. Three decades ago it might have been true that it was wildly optimistic to think we could “hit a bullet with a bullet”, but that is no longer true. With hit-to-kill technology to avoid reliance on explosive warheads, the MDA has achieved an 80% success rate since 2001 in realistic flight tests. Also, with advances in laser and rail gun technology, we have every reason to expect that record to be improved. Unfortunately, Loren Thompson, the author of that Forbes piece, was too optimistic about the capabilities of Republicans to make missile defense a priority. With President Obama opposed and with Republicans not possessing the votes to pass anything over Obama’s veto, not much has been achieved — just like with every other major political controversy.
We will just have to wait for a Republican President and Congress.
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