Countries' Dilemma: "Catch the Hypersonic Missiles"

KH-47M2 missile

[Researcher Seokchan An, Command Reconnaissance Research Team 2, Defense Agency for Technology and Quality] Hypersonic missiles are extremely difficult to detect due to their high speed and small radar cross-section.

To intercept hypersonic missiles, precise positional coordinates are required, but obtaining this information is challenging because the tracking time of Doppler radar is exceeded. For example, the Russian KH-47M2 hypersonic missile flying at Mach 10 takes 2 seconds to be detected and tracked by radar, but the missile has already traveled 7 km in those 2 seconds.

In addition to radar response time, the radar detection range makes tracking hypersonic threats even more difficult. For instance, the Type-997 Artisan surveillance radar installed on the UK Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers is known to have a detection range of 200 km, but hypersonic anti-ship missiles use sea-skimming low-altitude flight to evade radar detection, making them hard to detect.

Countries around the world are employing various methods to counter these hypersonic threats.

Raytheon is developing the Low-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS), which increases radar detection range and sensitivity to detect and track hypersonic threats. They have stated that the AN/SPY-6 surveillance radar equipped on surface combatants effectively detects and tracks hypersonic threats.

Raytheon is also considering distributed sensors as a means to track hypersonic weapons, planning to install small distributed sensors on land, sea, space, and air to provide more detailed imagery.

Saab has announced that its Sea Giraffe naval radar currently offers a hypersonic detection mode, and other manufacturers such as Thales, Leonardo, and others are also developing radars capable of handling hypersonic weapons.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.