Hypersonics

To Defeat Hypersonic Weapons, Pentagon Aims To Build Vast Space Sensor Layer

The Trump Administration is pursuing a series of secret military space projects that collectively will cost tens of billions of dollars. At least one of those projects is too big to hide: a Space Sensor Layer that would place hundreds of satellites in low earth orbit (LEO) to track hostile hypersonic missiles, and many ballistic threats too.

The Pentagon has been working for decades on methods of intercepting ballistic missiles aimed at U.S. forward-deployed forces, overseas allies, and the American homeland. Longer-range missiles typically are harder to intercept than shorter-range missiles because they move faster, and the ones with intercontinental reach are usually equipped with penetration aids (like decoys) to elude defenders.

What all ballistic missiles have in common, though, is that they follow a stable trajectory that makes their approximate destination easy to estimate. Now a new danger has arisen that threatens to negate the huge investment Washington has made in missile defenses: hypersonic missiles that glide through the atmosphere and maneuver unpredictably at speeds of a mile per second or faster.