NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
International Space Flight (ESA, Russia, China and others) => Chinese Launchers => Topic started by: Star One on 01/16/2014 07:30 am
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Hope this fits in this forum.
China has for the first time has tested a hypersonic missile vehicle designed to travel several times the speed of sound, according to the Pentagon.
The test makes China the second country after the United States to conduct experimental flights with hypersonic vehicles, a technology that could allow armies to rapidly strike distant targets anywhere around the world.
"We're aware of the test of the hypersonic vehicle but we are not commenting on it," said Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Pool, a Pentagon spokesman.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/16/china-tests-hypersonic-missile-vehicle?view=desktop
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Hope this fits in this forum.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/16/china-tests-hypersonic-missile-vehicle?view=desktop
If it's a missile I'd say that's the 4th state as India and Russia have certainly test fired such things.
OTOH if its a test vehicle to explore areas of hypersonic flight that's a bit different.
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Hope this fits in this forum.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/16/china-tests-hypersonic-missile-vehicle?view=desktop
If it's a missile I'd say that's the 4th state as India and Russia have certainly test fired such things.
OTOH if its a test vehicle to explore areas of hypersonic flight that's a bit different.
I was wondering if it was something similar to WaveRider.
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from the sound of it, it seems to be DARPA's project Falcon. Basically a advanced re-entry warhead for ICBMs.
However, it's seems all stories originates with Bill Gertz, so it could just be all made up too. I for one, just try to search through MoD's press releases, and found nothing relates to this thing, so I don't know where he got his confirmations from.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/13/hypersonic-arms-race-china-tests-high-speed-missil/
http://freebeacon.com/chinese-defense-ministry-confirms-hypersonic-missile-test/
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I can understand taking what Gertz said with a grain of salt, but most of his stories in recent years turned out to contain at least some truth.
IIRC he was among the first to report the DF-41 test launch, the DN-2 test, and the USS Cowpens incident. He surely found his way to some pentagon leaks.
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That just depend on whether you value type I error over type II error or not.
So far all pictures of the RV are either faked from Falcon Project HTV-2 or Boeing X-51, which is not encouraging.
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A NOTAM for January 9, from 5:55 to 6:35 UTC could be related to this test
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22808.msg1144500#msg1144500
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Committee Members React to Chinese Hyper Sonic Missile Test (http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=BABCDB1C-E11D-4F19-BD7A-3C7DFECB6893)
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Committee Members React to Chinese Hyper Sonic Missile Test (http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=BABCDB1C-E11D-4F19-BD7A-3C7DFECB6893)
Interesting to see it described as a cruise missile there, is that them just speaking generically or can we be fairly certain that was what it was?
I notice in the other thread you call it the WU-14?
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Several points:
1-During the 1990s, Bill Gertz clearly had a very good source or sources within the Pentagon providing him classified intelligence reports on China. His politics aside, he had the goods, and frequently demonstrated it by revealing some classified pictures. I have heard--no way to verify--that eventually the government plugged that leak (possibly by firing the leaker) and Gertz's material dried up. At that point, it became difficult to determine if he really had good information or was making stuff up.
2-When it comes to hypersonics, it is important to distinguish between simply shooting something fast with a rocket and letting it glide at hypersonic speeds, and air-breathing hypersonic propulsion. The former is hard, the latter is really hard.
3-I have a colleague who produced a highly classified study for the U.S. government on the state of hypersonics research around the world. He has given public talks about the subject. The only things he can discuss about China are what they put on their internet, but he acknowledges that they are doing a lot more than what they have made public. He was careful to say that they are doing more than the U.S. but are not necessarily ahead of the U.S. in their accomplishments, at least as of a few months ago.
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I'm curious. Hypersonic glide vehicles are able to fly fast enough to attack targets within 30 minutes. If the WS-10 HGV were launched from a Dongfeng-31 (DF-31) ICBM over the Pacific Ocean eastward, would it be fast enough to reach Los Angeles in 30 minutes and wreak devastation with a cluster of 10 spherical nuclear bombs?
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It would be intercepted by multiple SM3's...
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I'll second Blackstar's comments on this. There is definitely a huge difference between a hypersonic glide vehicle that is boosted by a rocket and a vehicle that can reach hypersonic speed on its own.
The concept of using a Chinese HGV to attack CONUS is very speculative at this point. The last test of DARPA's HTV-2 ended when, according to the post-test report, "the skin peeled off at speeds near Mach 20" 9 minutes into the flight:
http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2012/04/20.aspx
I find it very hard to believe that China has managed to solve this problem and is ahead of the US. Going off the US technology, it will be several years or more before we can reasonably expect to see a HGV that can survive a full length glide, and probably some time more before it can be developed into an operational weapons system.
Gertz has indeed had some nuggets of hard data in his recent stories. The challenge, as someone mentioned earlier, is figuring out what the real body of facts are based on just a few leaked tidbits. Are the leaks representative of reality? Are they representative of what the US intelligence community thinks is reality? Are they being selectively released to paint a particular picture, as is the case with most classifie leaks?
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This test was logged in the suborbitals thread, but its worth updating:
http://english.sina.com/china/2014/1210/762990.html
US reporting started at freebeacon again
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-confirms-third-test-of-hypersonic-missile/
Even made it to PopSci
http://www.popsci.com/offset-chinas-hypersonic-glider-flies-third-time-year
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A few weeks back I was talking to somebody who has access to a lot of intelligence material. He said that Chinese defense R&D spending is substantial. The way he put it, they fund alternative warheads to every missile they build (the implication was that these include hypersonic maneuverable warheads). He said that a lot of the spending is probably unwise and wasteful, but he is personally alarmed that so much is going on.