The Rise of Hypersonic Missiles

This video is made possible by Skillshare. Start learning for free for a full two months by going to the link in the description at skl.sh slash reallifelord2. Late last year the Russian military put their first hypersonic missile into service. It was recently tested when a hatch at the Dombarovsky Russian missile base in the southern Ural mountain range flipped open and out came one of the most advanced missiles known to man. It began streaking across the Russian sky but the missile did not curve back down to earth like most do with a clean and predictable arc, but rather the vehicle steered itself across the sky at record breaking speeds and onto a target in the Kamchatka peninsula some 6,000 kilometers away. This new Russian missile known as the Vanguard is almost hard to even call a missile at all. It is what some are calling a hypersonic boost glide weapon and this test could be the beginning stages of a new hypersonic arms race as America, Russia, and China are all preparing for faster, smarter, and more agile missiles to be deployed within the next few decades. But what is a hypersonic weapon and how does it differ from more conventional missiles used today? Missiles and other flying vehicles or objects can generally be classified into one of three categories subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic. Subsonic missiles are the slowest type and travel at less than the speed at which sound travels, also known as Mach 1. In terms of kilometers per hour this value varies greatly depending on altitude and temperature, however this can generally be regarded as roughly 1,000 kilometers per hour for simplicity's sake. The next type, supersonic missiles, are ones that fly above Mach 1 but below Mach 5 or between the speed of sound and five times the speed of sound. Thus this is generally somewhere between 1,000 to 5,000 kilometers per hour. Anything faster than this and well it is considered hypersonic meaning that it travels greater than five times the speed of sound or somewhere over 5,000 kilometers per hour. To put this another way, hypersonic missiles are generally flying at a rate of about one to five miles per second, meaning that it could travel from Los Angeles to New York in just over eight minutes. In addition to the extreme speeds that these weapons offer, they are also extremely accurate and precise. In the military science of ballistics, circular error probable or CEP is the measure of a weapon system's precision. This is defined as the radius of a circle centered upon the area for which half of all landing points should be. Older more traditional ballistic missiles, while relatively quick, are much less agile and tend to not be so accurate. A Minuteman III ICBM for example, which acts as the backbone for America's nuclear arsenal, has a CEP of 120 meters, meaning that only half of the missiles fired are expected to land within the 120 meter impact zone. But what if you're attempting to hit a ship out at sea or take out enemy infrastructure in the form of a runway? Certainly a standard cruise missile could be used with a CEP of roughly 10 meters, however they are relatively speaking quite slow, clogging in with a top speed of just 800 kilometers per hour. New hypersonic weapons combine the best of both of these worlds by providing superior accuracy and precision with extreme amounts of speed. Hypersonic weapons themselves can be classified into one of two categories. The first is what is known as a hypersonic cruise missile or HCM. This variant is unique in that it is powered all the way to the target by rockets or high-speed jet engines. Currently the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency or DARPA is testing something known as the WaveRider and is an example of this type of hypersonic missile. Essentially speaking, these are just faster versions of existing cruise missiles like the Tomahawk. HCMs could be launched from the ground, air, or sea and would likely accelerate to around Mach 4 or 5 before an air-breathing engine capable of producing hypersonic speeds takes over. These engines, known as supersonic combustion ramjets or scramjets for short, work by compressing supersonic incoming air before the combustion phase allowing the engine to operate extremely efficiently at high speeds. These missiles would cruise at altitudes of 20 to 30 kilometers and be capable of extreme maneuverability. The second variant of hypersonic weapon is what is known as a hypersonic glide vehicle or HGV. HGVs are typically launched from rockets into the upper atmosphere where they are released at altitudes that can vary anywhere from 50 kilometers to higher than 100 kilometers if required. These objects are then able to skip across the atmosphere before gliding down upon their targets when ready. What makes HGVs particularly worrisome is the inability for current defense systems to counter them. Unlike conventional ballistic missiles of the past which have a very predictable trajectory, these hypersonic missiles can have a very unpredictable trajectory resulting in target ambiguity and the ability to penetrate most defenses. While some nations have space-based sensor systems that are capable of detecting ballistic missile launches, many countries rely on ground-based radars for any advanced warning. A traditional ballistic missile launched at 3,000 kilometers away spends much of its time within the vacuum of space where it cannot easily maneuver and is readily accessible by enemy radar. HGVs however spend 80 percent of their time within the atmosphere allowing them to hide behind the curvature of the earth and adjust intended trajectories. This low altitude decreases the amount of time between first detection and the launching of any retaliatory measures which are required. This compressed time frame will make it extremely difficult to respond to incoming attacks without being struck first. The Nuclear Threat Initiative organization put out a report that estimated a full 23 minutes would be required for a U.S. response to an incoming Russian missile attack. After the initial Russian missile launch occurs and around one minute into the flight, a U.S. satellite would detect the Russian missile launch. At minute two, ground-based radars also detect the incoming missile and at minute three the North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD begins to assess the information from the satellite and radar detections. After determining that the threat is real, NORAD alerts the White House at four minutes after launch. At seven minutes after launch, the president and advisors are assembled and briefed to determine what response should take place and after five minutes of deliberation at minute 12, a decision is reached as to how to respond to the incoming attack. At 15 minutes, the orders to begin the retaliatory launch sequence are transmitted and at 20 minutes, the launch officer receives, decodes, and authenticates the orders to retaliate. Then it isn't until minute 23 that the launch sequence is completed and retaliatory missiles are actually launched. As you can see, at 23 minutes in order to complete a retaliatory launch sequence, a hypersonic missile traveling at nearly 10 times the speed of sound would travel nearly 4,000 kilometers or close to the distance from San Francisco to New York City in the same amount of time. This limited response time could create a scenario where humans would have to hand over more control to semi-autonomous missile response capabilities as there would be no time to keep man-made decision making in the loop. While some of these vehicles, like the Avangard, are intended to carry explosive devices or even nuclear warheads, others may simply rely on their high speed and accuracy to destroy targets with their kinetic energy impact alone. Even the smallest object going fast enough can cause a lot of damage. At 10 times the speed of sound, a kilogram of anything has more kinetic energy than an entire kilogram of TNT. In fact, if you extrapolate this mass further, the equivalent amount of TNT could be several metric tons depending on the impact speed alone. The idea for hypersonic weapons is certainly not new and has been a long time coming. The first rocket-boosted glider flew all the way back in 1928 when German engineers on the cusp of World War II tried to extend the range of von Braun's V-2 by having it glide towards intended targets. After the war, America and the Soviet Union used German rocket scientists and technology to take great technological leaps, which led to vehicles like the Alpha Draco of the 1950s and even the Space Shuttle, which was to some extent its own hypersonic glider. You may be asking then, why has it taken so long to develop proper hypersonic weapons if this was already being attempted almost 100 years ago? The answer is the many engineering challenges presented by creating vehicles that are moving so freakishly fast. Creating these types of vehicles requires a large amount of lift in order to allow it to glide for long distances. The lift-to-drag ratio of the Space Shuttle, for instance, when it was traveling at hypersonic speeds and entering the atmosphere was around 1 to 1. Serviceable gliders like the Air Force is trying to develop will need ratios of 2 to 1 or higher, which at such extreme velocities can generate surface temperatures of over 2,000 degrees, eroding the protective coating, frying electronics, and bending the vehicle completely out of shape. These greater speeds also break up molecules in the atmosphere, creating a field of charged particles or plasma around the glider, which in turn disrupts GPS and other signals required for guiding the missile. Technologically speaking, the United States is likely the furthest ahead in regards to hypersonics. For the Pentagon's 2020 budget, they are devoting a total of 2.6 billion dollars specifically to further develop this technology. Russia and China, however, are likely close behind and have exhibited their own successful test flights respectively. It remains to be seen what effect these new hypersonic weapons will have on 21st century warfare and if anything can be done to stop them. Like nuclear weapons, potentially arms agreements and non-proliferation need to be debated with respect to this new technology. Since starting this channel, I have learned so much about animation as well as film and video production. Mastering the tools required to make these videos possible would be so much more difficult if it wasn't for Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community for creators with literally thousands of classes focused on graphic design, animation and so much more. You can learn how to make videos just like this one by checking out classes like Jake Bartlett's lessons on animating with ease and After Effects. This class has 18 lessons that will walk you through step by step exactly how to create professional animations with absolutely no experience required. The classes are also short and concise so you can fit all of your learning into your busy schedule and best of all, the annual subscription will cost you less than $10 per month. As a special offer right now, the first 500 people who click on the link in the description at skl.sh slash reallifeflor2 will get a free 2 month trial of Skillshare Premium where you can explore all of the classes that Skillshare has to offer. And as always, thank you so much for watching this video.