Posted on 11/25/2007 11:00:06 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
NEW DELHI: Very soon, India will take a crucial step towards proving its fledgling ballistic missile defence (BMD) system. In the first week of December, the country plans to unleash a new "interceptor" missile to "kill" an incoming "hostile" missile over the Bay of Bengal.
This new interceptor missile, an "endo-atmospheric" one, will take on the "enemy" missile at an altitude of 15-20 km above the earth, on the lines of the American Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system.
A year ago, on November 27, India had tested an "exo-atmospheric" hypersonic interceptor missile to successfully destroy an incoming Prithvi missile at an altitude of around 50 km, demonstrating a capability akin to the Israeli Arrow-2 BMD system.
In effect, the two tests taken together will constitute the first phase in India’s quest to develop a "unique" two-tier BMD system, capable of tracking and destroying hostile missiles both inside (endo) and outside (exo) the earth’s atmosphere.
"With a two-layered system, analogous to both PAC-3 and Arrow-2, the aim is to first engage in 'exo' and then intercept the leakers in 'endo' to ensure a kill probability of 99.8%," DRDO’s chief controller for missiles, V K Saraswat, told TOI.
Pinging...
Now India has a missile that can shoot down another missile. Interesting development given that Liberals here in the US and elsewhere told us that such a thing was a physical impossibility. But I’m sure their grasp of science couldn’t possibly let us down in a similar fashion when it comes to man-made global warming, right?
That’s very good news.
Well,these systems have just begun testing-it will be years before they are inducted & it won’t be easy-look at the trouble(political & technical ) that the US has to put up with.
In the "exo-atmosphere" when you go hypersonic, no one can hear you.
It’s not physically impossible, it is simply extremely difficult to do so reliably given the high degree of uncertainty and short response time in an actual scenario and very very expensive.
Much ado has been made about the so-called Indian missile intercept, at least in the Indian press, but it’s really making a mountain out of a molehill. Most of the Indian press is pretty much clueless and the scientists are little better being utterly deluded. 99.8% kill probability? That type of hogwash is just sad coming from a supposed scientist. What is actually happening is the first steps being taken in the development of a missile defense, a merge missile test where two prepositioned SRBM’s were fired in an intersecting flight path so that one would hit the other. The stuff the U.S. and Soviets experimented on during the 50’s and 60’s as the preliminary steps.
Considering that the entire Indian military R&D budget is only about 1 Billion USD per year while the U.S. spends over 10 Billion per year on missile defense alone and has spent hundreds of Billions cumulatively and is still pursuing robust testing, India is decades away from actually fielding a deployable system.
Now, not only do we have the beginnings of a working system but we have on the near horizon, new technologies such as laser weapons that show great promise as a cheap, reliable defense against even the fastest of missiles. A missile may travel at speeds greater than 800-900 miles per hour but compared to a "projectile" (the laser beam) that travels at 186,000 miles per second, comparatively speaking, even the most advanced hypersonic missiles are pretty much motionless targets. Early laser systems have even been used to shoot down multiple mortar shells fired in salvo without missing a single round. That can only get better.
Research and Development brought all of this about. That and Ronald Reagan's belief that American innovation could solve the insanity that was "Mutually Assured Destruction." The Indians have seen Reagan's wisdom in this and are moving forward with their own system. This is a good thing.
Comrade Jingjing usually has a cynical take on anything that is not positive for the P.R of China.
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