A New Arms Race

Dear reader,

Several decades ago, when I first saw “Ran,” a 1985 film by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, one of its most colorful and dramatic scenes made such a deep impression on me that it crept back into my thoughts as I reported on the consequences of a new global arms race in hypersonic missiles, a competition that it's described in a New York Times Magazine article published on June 23.

I became interested in learning about hypersonics, which are now under accelerating development in at least five countries, because they are unlike other weapons. Designed to fly at 10 to 20 times the speed of sound before hitting their targets with the force of tons of TNT, they are also maneuverable — two characteristics that make them hard to spot and virtually impossible to block. That means they can be used to attack quickly and early, before potential enemies can try any meaningful retaliation.

But there’s a drawback. Creating a sizable new arsenal of superfast weapons can make other nations jittery — fearful that they might be robbed of an ability to respond effectively to a major attack. If countries are armed with missiles that arrive in minutes, their leaders’ trigger fingers could become itchy, and accidental war might ensue if one or both sides see only risk from waiting to try to resolve a dispute peacefully.

Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable. And They’re Starting a New Global Arms Race.

The new weapons — which could travel at more than 15 times the speed of sound with terrifying accuracy — threaten to change the nature of warfare.

A Mach 14 Waverider glide vehicle, which takes its name from its ability to generate high lift and ride on its own shock waves. This shape is representative of the type of systems the United States is developing today.

Concept art from Northrop Grumman shows a potential architecture for defending against hypersonic missiles. Is DoD Moving Quickly Enough on hyperdefense?

This isn’t a new problem but an acceleration of one. Weapons analysts have long worried about the “use it or lose it” pressures on political leaders early in a crisis to launch ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, because an opponent’s missiles could wipe out some of those weapons in just 30 minutes. But what if the time needed to complete a pre-emptive strike on opposing forces is cut in half? Hypersonics are being designed to be launched from planes, submarines or ships and arrive at their targets in less than 15 minutes. Is that so fast that it might outstrip the ability of humans to act wisely and prevent a conflict that they would prefer to avoid?

In “Ran” — which Kurosawa once told an interviewer was partly meant to warn his audience of the dangers in a nuclear world — the second great battle scene graphically depicts how an accidental war might begin. Two rival sons of a warlord, each hungry for title and land, initially agree to settle their dispute. But neither is convinced that the other will remain peaceful, and they each see the other as postured to strike first. So, beneath brightly colored blue and red flags on a vast battlefield, they stumble, even against the wishes of their advisers, into a gruesome conflict.

No one knows for sure what will happen once the United States, Russia and China — or nations entangled in a regional rivalry, like India — equip themselves with sizable destructive arsenals of fast-flying missiles. The United Nations’ disarmament office has warned of heightened risks to peace. Congress last year ordered the Pentagon to produce a report by Jan. 31 on the threat of accidental war once hypersonics are deployed, but it hasn’t been turned over. So far, it seems, those in charge of hypersonics have been focused on building them, not imagining the reactions they might inspire in others.

THE AGE OF HYPERSONIC WEAPONS & Flight HAS BEGUN

With a highly publicized test firing and pledge by President Vladimir Putin that it will soon be deployed to frontline units, Russia’s Avangard hypersonic weapon has officially gone from a secretive development program to an inevitability. The first weapon of its type to enter into active service, it’s capable of delivering a payload to any spot on the planet at speeds up to Mach 27 while remaining effectively unstoppable by conventional missile defense systems because of its incredible speed and enhanced maneuverability compared to traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Rendering of Avangard reentering Earth’s atmosphere

In a statement made after the successful test of Avangard, which saw it hit a target approximately 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) from the launch site, President Putin made it clear that the evasive nature of the weapon was not to be underestimated: “The Avangard is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defense means of the potential adversary.” The former Soviet KGB agent turned head of state has never been one to shy away from boastful claims, but in this case it’s not just an exaggeration. While the United States and China have been working on their own hypersonic weapons which should be able to meet the capabilities of Avangard when they eventually come online, there’s still no clear deterrent for this type of weapon.

Earlier in the year, commander of U.S. Strategic Command General John Hyten testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the threat of retaliation was the best and perhaps only method of keeping the risk of hypersonic weapons in check: “We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force.” Essentially, the threat of hypersonic weapons may usher in a new era of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD), the Cold War era doctrine that kept either side from firing the first shot knowing they would sustain the same or greater damage from their adversary.

With President Putin claiming Avangard has already entered into serial production and will be deployed as soon as early 2019, the race is on for the United States and China to close the hypersonic gap. But exactly how far away is the rest of the world from developing an operational hypersonic weapon? Perhaps more to the point, what does “hypersonic weapon” really mean?

A NEW OLD WAY TO FLY

For anyone watching the test of the Avangard on Russian media, the launch didn’t look like anything special. If anything, it looked a bit dated. The heavy silo hatch opened in the snowy ground, flame billowed out, and viewers were treated to only the briefest of glimpses of the sleek missile as it roared into the cold air over the Dombarovsky Air Base. If viewers were hoping to see some futuristic spacecraft blasting off from the pad, they were certainly in for disappointment. But this rather anticlimactic launch was to be expected, as the Avangard isn’t a complete missile system, but simply the payload which is launched atop a Soviet-era UR-100UTTKh ICBM.

Avangard is what’s referred to in ICBM parlance as a “kill vehicle”: the final stage of the rocket that does the terminal guidance and carries the actual explosive device (nuclear or otherwise). While Avangard might look to all the world like a futuristic star fighter in the official renderings released by Russian media, it’s actually incapable of getting itself off the ground. It needs to be launched on a conventional rocket to reach the speed and altitude where it can separate and continue on its own independent flight.

At that point, the Avangard becomes what’s known as a hypersonic glide vehicle. These are craft which utilize the boost-glide principle, where a rocket-launched craft “skips” across the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere to increase its flight time. This concept was explored as long ago as World War II with the design of a sub-orbital space bomber called the “Silbervogel” which Germany hoped would allow them to strike targets in the United States. Germany was defeated before the bomber ever got off the drawing board, but a modern analysis of the design shows that contemporary material science and limited knowledge of atmospheric reentry meant the craft as designed would never have survived its intended mission.

Illustration of a atmospheric “skip” by Clem Tillier (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and more modern composite materials along with the benefit of computer modeling have made it possible to shrink such vehicles down to the point where they can be fit atop conventional ICBMs. This allows for a warhead which can travel much farther and faster than the missile which launched it, while also being free of the predictable parabolic flight path a traditional warhead would take.

Put simply, it may well be the perfect strategic strike weapon. Incredibly fast, difficult to track, capable of performing evasive maneuvers, and thanks to the fact it makes use of existing booster and launch infrastructure, relatively cheap to deploy. Now that the technology has been proven viable, proliferation within the next decade seems inescapable.

THE HEAT IS ON

Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2)

Russia might already have their Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle in production, but the United States and China aren’t far behind. Both countries have performed successful test flights of their own hypersonic gliders, though it should be said that they remain experimental projects and aren’t ready for practical deployment. At the current rate of development (which may well be accelerated in light of Russia’s accomplishments) neither country is expected to produce a functional weapon before 2020 at the earliest.

In the United States, the Prompt Global Strike program has been seeking to develop hypersonic weaponry of various types since the early 2000’s; and while no tangible system has emerged as of yet, the DARPA Falcon Project is the closest in form and function to Avangard. The most recent flights in this program were made by the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) in 2010 and 2011, both of which reached speeds of Mach 20 but ended less than ten minutes after separation from the Minotaur IV Lite booster when the craft started to break up. A third planned test flight was canceled when it was determined that the data collected from the first two was sufficient to meet the program’s goals.

People’s Republic of China DF-ZF

Less is known about China’s experimental DF-ZF hypersonic glider, but reconnaissance by US intelligence agencies indicate that all seven test flights performed between 2014 and 2017 were successful. The Chinese Defense Ministry claimed that these flights were purely for scientific purposes, but experts believe the hypersonic glider program to be part of the larger strengthening of the country’s military forces and that the system is very near operational status.

From the limited imagery provided by the Chinese media, the DF-ZF outwardly looks to be an amalgamation of the HTV-2’s arrowhead shape and the obvious fins and control surfaces of the Avangard. Despite these visual similarities and the fact it utilizes the same boost-glide principles, the DF-ZF has only been observed traveling at a maximum of Mach 10. That said, anything moving beyond Mach 5 should be more than fast enough to evade all current defense systems.

A NEW(ER) SPACE RACE

The Space Race of the 20th century was as much about determining who had the militaristic “High Ground” as it was about exploration or national pride. The United States believed that if the Soviet Union reached the Moon they would have the ultimate vantage point from which to launch an attack, a scenario which simply could not be allowed in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite enjoying an early lead demonstrated by putting the first satellite and then human into space, the USA ultimately beat the Soviet Union to the Moon. While the competition continued for a few more decades, the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union would leave the United States as the defacto leader in space technology and exploration.

But just shy of fifty years after Neil Armstrong’s one small step, that leadership is in a tenuous position. Not only is Russia now the nexus of human spaceflight after the retirement of the Space Shuttle, but they’ve just claimed a decisive win in terms of space-based weaponry. Even in the most optimistic view, the United States is likely five years away from meeting the capabilities of Avangard, and nowhere near a workable detection and countermeasure infrastructure.

We’ve all been excited and inspired by the “New Space Race” between commercial companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, thanks as much to their cutting edge technology as their Internet-savvy media departments. But while it might not have the same live-streamed media blitz, it seems the stage is set for a rematch between Russia and the United States for dominance of the heavens, this time with China joining in the fray. It’s anyone’s guess who might ultimately come out on top this time around, but true to form, Russia has definitely come out swinging.

Hypersonic flight technology just passed a ‘hugely significant’ milestone

  
  

H/O: Hypersonic jet EU
A rendering of a hypersonic vehicle in flight.
Reaction Engines

Engineers working on a propulsion system to enable hypersonic air travel say they have passed a development milestone.

U.K.-based Reaction Engines is developing technology for Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engines (SABRE), which could one day allow aircraft to fly up to five times faster than the speed of sound — that’s Mach 5 or 3,836 miles per hour.

At that speed, hypersonic flights between London and Australia could be over in just four-and-a-half hours.

While some commercial plane makers are racing to bring back supersonic jets, Boeing has gone further than many of its competitors by unveiling a design for a hypersonic aircraft that could potentially travel five times quicker.




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Boeing unveils rendering of hypersonic jet

But for those speeds to be possible, the futuristic engines need to process air flows with extremely high temperatures. Now Reaction Engines has revealed that its precooler component – designed to manage extreme heat – has successfully handled temperatures of 420 degrees Celsius, matching the conditions it would face when reaching Mach 3.3 speeds. At that speed, an aircraft would be traveling three times faster than the speed of sound and 50 percent faster than Concorde.

The test took place at Reaction Engines’ facility at the United States’ Colorado Air and Space Port. They were the first phase of an extensive trial program, which will eventually see the precooler exposed to temperatures hotter than 1,000 degrees Celsius – the conditions expected during Mach 5 hypersonic flight.

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In space rocket mode, the engines are being designed to speed a craft up to Mach 25.

Over the last four years, Reaction Engines has secured more than £100 million ($130 million) in investment from backers including BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and Boeing’s venture capital arm. The firm has also received a £60 million ($78 million) funding commitment from the U.K. Government.

Mark Thomas, Reaction Engines CEO, said in a press release Monday that the results were unparalleled and a “hugely significant milestone.”

“This provides an important validation of our heat exchanger and thermal management technology portfolio, which has application across emerging areas such as very high-speed flight, hybrid electric aviation and integrated vehicle thermal management,” he said.



WATCH: Could supersonic transport be making a comeback?
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Sixteen years after the Concorde supersonic airliner took its last flight, a handful of companies are working to create a new generation of airliners capable of flying faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1, or about 770 miles per hour). Firms like Boom and Aerion promise to be flying passengers at 1,000 miles per hour or more by the mid-2020s.

But some companies are working toward passenger planes that will leave these supersonic jets in the dust. These so-called hypersonic aircraft would be capable of flying at or above Mach 5, or about 3,800 miles per hour. At Mach 5, a trip from New York City to London would take just two hours instead of the typical seven or eight.

An English company claims to have taken a big step toward a hypersonic future. Reaction Engines, based in Oxfordshire, announced Monday that it had successfully tested an engine cooling system that could support aircraft flying at Mach 3.3. If subsequent tests go well, the “pre-cooler” system could help aircraft reach Mach 5 or higher — and possibly power a spaceplane.

The system addresses one of the biggest challenges in the development of hypersonic airplanes: controlling the buildup of extreme heat within engines.
Image: The Sabre engine was created to curb the extreme heat buildup in hypersonic plane engines.

The Sabre engine was created to curb the extreme heat buildup in hypersonic plane engines.Reaction Engines

At Mach 5, air temperatures inside an engine can reach 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s enough to melt metal, and it interferes with the combustion that generates the propulsive power. The pre-cooler lowers temperatures by passing super-hot air over thousands of tiny coolant-filled tubes.
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In the first round of tests, conducted in March at a facility at the Colorado Air and Space Port in Adams County, researchers used a fighter jet engine to blast the experimental device with air heated to 788 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just about the temperature that an engine would experience while traveling at Mach 3.3, or 2,532 miles per hour. The device cooled the airstream to a manageable temperature in less than 1/20th of a second, according to the company.

The successful test was “a hugely significant milestone,” Reaction Engines CEO Mark Thomas said in a statement.

Other experts expressed enthusiasm, too