By Iain Boyd
China’s newest hypersonic missile, the DF-27, can fly as far as Hawaii, penetrate U.S. missile defenses and pose a particular threat to U.S. aircraft carriers, according to news reports of an assessment from the Pentagon.
Chinese researchers claimed in a May 2023 research journal report that the country’s hypersonic missiles could destroy a U.S. carrier group “with certainty.” This capability threatens to sideline U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the Pacific, potentially shifting the strategic balance of power and leaving the U.S. with limited options for assisting Taiwan in the event China invades.
This shift in the balance of power highlights how the next-generation hypersonic missiles that China, Russia and the U.S. are developing pose a significant threat to global security. I am an aerospace engineer who studies space and defense systems, including hypersonic systems. These new systems pose an important challenge due to their maneuverability all along their trajectory. Because their flight paths can change as they travel, defending against these missiles requires tracking them throughout their flight.
A second important challenge stems from the fact that they operate in a different region of the atmosphere from other existing threats. The new hypersonic weapons fly much higher than slower subsonic missiles but much lower than intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S. and its allies do not have good tracking coverage for this in-between region, nor do Russia or China.
Destabilizing effect
Russia has claimed that some of its hypersonic weapons can carry a nuclear warhead. This statement alone is a cause for concern whether or not it is true. If Russia ever operates this system against an enemy, that country would have to decide the probability of the weapon being conventional or nuclear.
In the case of the U.S., if the determination were made that the weapon was nuclear, then there is a very high likelihood that the U.S. would consider this a first strike attack and respond by unloading its nuclear weapons on Russia. The hypersonic speed of these weapons increases the precariousness of the situation because the time for any last-minute diplomatic resolution would be severely reduced.
It is the destabilizing influence that modern hypersonic missiles represent that is perhaps the greatest risk they pose. I believe the U.S. and its allies should rapidly field their own hypersonic weapons to bring other nations such as Russia and China to the negotiating table to develop a diplomatic approach to managing these weapons.
What is hypersonic?
Describing a vehicle as hypersonic means that it flies much faster than the speed of sound, which is 761 miles per hour (1,225 kilometers per hour) at sea level and 663 mph (1,067 kph) at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) where passenger jets fly. Passenger jets travel at just under 600 mph (966 kph), whereas hypersonic systems operate at speeds of 3,500 mph (5,633 kph) – about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) per second – and higher.
Hypersonic systems have been in use for decades. When John Glenn came back to Earth in 1962 from the first U.S. crewed flight around the Earth, his capsule entered the atmosphere at hypersonic speed. All of the intercontinental ballistic missiles in the world’s nuclear arsenals are hypersonic, reaching about 15,000 mph (24,140 kph), or about 4 miles (6.4 km) per second at their maximum velocity.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched on large rockets and then fly on a predictable trajectory that takes them out of the atmosphere into space and then back into the atmosphere again. The new generation of hypersonic missiles fly very fast, but not as fast as ICBMs. They are launched on smaller rockets that keep them within the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
U.S. Government Accounting Office
Three types of hypersonic missiles
There are three different types of non-ICBM hypersonic weapons: aero-ballistic, glide vehicles and cruise missiles. A hypersonic aero-ballistic system is dropped from an aircraft, accelerated to hypersonic speed using a rocket and then follows a ballistic, meaning unpowered, trajectory. The system Russian forces have been using to attack Ukraine, the Kinzhal, is an aero-ballistic missile. The technology has been around since about 1980.
A hypersonic glide vehicle is boosted on a rocket to high altitude and then glides to its target, maneuvering along the way. Examples of hypersonic glide vehicles include China’s Dongfeng-17, Russia’s Avangard and the U.S. Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike system. U.S. officials have expressed concern that China’s hypersonic glide vehicle technology is further advanced than the U.S. system.
A hypersonic cruise missile is boosted by a rocket to hypersonic speed and then uses an air-breathing engine called a scramjet to sustain that speed. Because they ingest air into their engines, hypersonic cruise missiles require smaller launch rockets than hypersonic glide vehicles, which means they can cost less and be launched from more places. Hypersonic cruise missiles are under development by China and the U.S. The U.S. reportedly conducted a test flight of a scramjet hypersonic missile in March 2020.
Defensive measures
The primary reason nations are developing these next-generation hypersonic weapons is how difficult they are to defend against due to their speed, maneuverability and flight path. The U.S. is starting to develop a layered approach to defending against hypersonic weapons that includes a constellation of sensors in space and close cooperation with key allies
With all of this activity on hypersonic weapons and defending against them, it is important to assess the threat they pose to national security. Hypersonic missiles with conventional, non-nuclear warheads are primarily useful against high-value targets, such as an aircraft carrier. Being able to take out such a target could have a significant impact on the outcome of a major conflict.
However, hypersonic missiles are expensive and therefore not likely to be produced in large quantities. As seen in the recent use by Russia, hypersonic weapons are not necessarily a silver bullet that ends a conflict.
Iain Boyd is Director of the Center for National Security Initiatives and Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
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Dennis C Rathsam says
You can thank China Joe Biden! He puts America last while he caters to XI!
DaleL says
Huh? If anything, Mr. Biden has done the opposite.
Biden’s signature legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is the opposite of catering to Xi Jinping. The Center For Strategic & International Studies wrote about the IRA: “…much of the bill is also aimed squarely at enhancing competition with China.” and “…the IRA provides tax incentives, estimated to add up to $30 billion over the next decade, to stimulate U.S. manufacturing of solar modules, wind turbines, inverters, batteries for electric vehicles (EV) and power storage, and the extraction and refining of critical minerals.”
https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-new-climate-bill-also-about-competition-china
Xi Jinping has repeatedly threatened Taiwan. The BBC reported on 10/22/2021: “President Joe Biden said the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked, in an apparent departure from a long-held US foreign policy position.”
DaleL says
This discussion by Iain Boyd does not seem to take into consideration the recent engagements between Russia’s Kinzhal missiles versus the Patriot missile defense in Ukraine. Russia attempted to destroy a Patriot missile battery with first one and then 6 Kinzhal missiles and failed. Also, unlike a patriot missile battery, a carrier task force is mobile. The Kinzhal missile is reported to carry a 1,000 pound conventional warhead. It would take several direct hits to destroy a carrier. To destroy a carrier by a single hit or near miss, would require a nuclear warhead. To succeed, a hypersonic missile would have to be targeting the carrier group (rather than open ocean), not get confused by the electronic countermeasures, identify the carrier from other ships, evade any anti-missile defenses such as Patriot, and survive the Phalanx point defense system.
In January of this year, Lockheed Martin presented a new way of employing the Patriot PAC-3 surface-to-air missile. Lockheed Martin proposes modifications that would allow it to be fired from a Mk 41 Vertical Launch System cell. This would add the Patriot system to the arsenal of current and future U. S. Navy warships.
The success, of U. S. and other Nato weapons in defense of Ukraine against Putin’s Russia, has to create a significant F.U.D. factor for China. (F.U.D. = Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) Launching a failed war, frequently results in regime change.
Concerned Citizen says
Technology has advanced to the point of large Carrier Groups becoming obsolete.
With this new missile tech China can now dominate most of the world. At a fraction of the cost of building and deploying super sized CVN’s. CVN’s might be a good deterrence against a third world nation doing something against our wishes. But now they are rapidly becoming a liability against the major players.
China doesn’t hold the same regard to life as we do. And will have no qualms about taking out a Carrier Group to send a message.
Jimbo99 says
From other reads, I understand those hypersonic Chinese balloons are quite elusive & threaten global air supremacy. What’s next, hypersonic Balsa gliders & kites ?