It might be best to think of the hypersonic scramjet-powered cruise missiles America has in the works as extremely fast suicide drones, capable of maneuvering like an aircraft to some extent as they fly along a flatter flight path to their targets than a boost-glide vehicle can. In practice, these platforms are far more difficult and expensive to build than traditional cruise missiles, and are thought to be far more difficult to intercept as well. Scramjets often function best only at speeds above Mach 3.įrom there, hypersonic cruise missiles operate much like traditional cruise missiles–at least in theory.
Because scramjets are really only efficient at high rates of speed, these missiles are often deployed from fast-moving aircraft or rely on a different form of propulsion to get them to these speeds. A scramjet, or supersonic combusting ramjet , is a variation on tried and true ramjet technology that allows combustion to take place with supersonic airflow. Hypersonic cruise missiles, on the other hand, often rely on an advanced propulsion system called a scramjet to fly at much lower altitudes. As such, launching conventional hypersonic boost-glide vehicles from an ICBM simply isn’t a viable option, because it would prompt a nuclear response, and usher in the end of the world. Because there’s no way to determine the difference between a nuclear and a conventional payload on a launching ICBM, the assumption has to be that every ICBM is nuclear. However, America has no hypersonic nuclear missiles in development, so the U.S.’ efforts can’t rely on using ICBMs for their own. Russia’s Avangard hypersonic boost-glide weapon, for instance, will be carried by their forthcoming nuclear ICBM already headed for service, the RS-28 Sarmat. The missile then deploys one or more glide vehicles that rely on momentum and control surfaces to manage their high-speed descent as they close with their targets.īecause hypersonic boost-glide missiles share a number of commonalities with long-range ballistic missiles, they are often carried aloft by the very same rocket platforms. They are carried into the upper atmosphere via high-velocity boosters just like traditional ICBMs.
Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs) aren’t all that different than the warheads on traditional long-range ballistic missiles, at least in the early stages of their flight path.
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