The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is leading a new study on how American forces could improve their defenses against hypersonic glide vehicles and other advanced threats.
MDA recently released a request for information to identify “innovative weapon concepts for defense against future advanced threats.” Responses are due Feb. 24. An upcoming analysis of alternatives will review the RFI responses, said Marc Magdinec, the agency’s executive director of Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense.
The study is expected to assess a wide range of options, including whether sea-based ballistic missile defense (BMD) should no longer be limited to cruisers and destroyers. Larger vessels, such as amphibious transport dock ships, might have a role.
“Our aperture is open,” Magdinec said Feb. 16 during a panel discussion at an American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) symposium in Arlington, Va. “It is very open to look at how to defeat not just hyperglide but any of the advanced threats that are coming down the road. We need to look at something beyond where we are today.”
Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] Ingalls Shipbuilding has proposed a BMD ship based on its existing San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD-17). In addition to interceptor missiles, the ship could be equipped with a more powerful radar and advanced anti-missile technology, such as railguns or directed energy systems.
“Compared to the current BMD workhorse, this ship would provide a significantly more capable platform for sea-based missile defense systems,” the company says.
The MDA study is also expected to look at how to improve the use of sea-based sensors, including those not designed for missile defense. “We have to take advantage of all of the sensors out there, not just on a few ships but all the ships,” Magdinec said.
Rear Adm. Doug Small, the Navy’s program executive officer for integrated warfare systems, told the symposium audience that hypersonic glide vehicles threaten to “take away reaction time from our sailors, but we’re going to claw it back” through various means, including new systems and tracking algorithms, changes in tactics and “weapons considerations.”
Another speaker, Tom Beutner, head of naval air warfare and weapons for the Office of Naval Research, said lasers might someday be able to counter advanced threats but are currently better-suited for less challenging targets, such as boats and unmanned aircraft. “I think we have a ways to go yet before we have a directed energy system capable of taking out the hardest threats,” he said.
According to a report last year by the Jamestown Foundation, China and Russia are developing hypersonic glide vehicles, which have the potential to prevent U.S. ballistic missile defenses from locking onto them. For instance, while China’s DF-ZF is launched into the atmosphere in a trajectory similar to that of a ballistic missile, it is more maneuverable when it re-enters the atmosphere and can adjust its speed and altitude before gliding to its target.