Page 22 - ADT MARCH 2023 Latest Magazine | GBP

Marching On stage of their flight.
China, which has been growing its military might In December 2022, Raytheon announced that Raytheon Missiles
at a pace that is causing plenty of concern to & Defence had completed the “Systems Requirements Review –
the U.S. and its allies, has also made significant Prototype” phase in its development of the GPI. The company is
strides in its plans to add hypersonic weapons now working on the GPI design. The GPI, when operational, will be
to its arsenal. In August last year, the People’s launched from a ship to intercept lower-altitude hypersonic missiles
Liberation Army (PLA) launched DF-17 missiles in their glide phase of flight. The GPI is expected to bridge the cru-
from a ground-based platform during live-fire cial gap between SM-3, which destroys incoming missiles outside
exercises near Pingtan Island in the Taiwan Earth’s atmosphere, and SM-6, which hits targets in the terminal
Strait. The DF-17, China’s first hypersonic glider phase of flight.
weapon, is launched by a medium-range sol-
id-fuel ballistic missile and can reach speeds A hypersonic missile goes into its glide phase when it re-enters the
greater than Mach 5 (over 6,000 kilometers per atmosphere and continues toward its target. “GPI will be the first
hour). effector to operate against hypersonic threats in that phase,” says
Patrick Hollen, who works on both RMD’s GPI and SM-3 programmes.
Apart from the DF-17, China has another hyper- “It also enhances layered defence and enables more opportunities
sonic weapon, the DF-21, a hypersonic anti-ship to intercept a hostile hypersonic threat farther from its target.”
missile known as the CH-AS-X-13. A third hyper-
sonic platform, a ship-launched anti-ship missile It was in June 2022 that the U.S. Missile Defence Agency awarded
called the YJ-21, is under development. Raytheon and Northrop Grumman contracts to develop prototypes

of GPI missiles. One of the prototypes will be chosen for full-scale
Protective Shield production and deployed within the Aegis ballistic missile defence
Aware of the need to defeat a potential hyper- system.
sonic weapons attack by its adversaries, the
U.S. has begun investing substantial funds in The U.S. currently does not operate satellites designed to monitor
the creation of a counter-hypersonic weapons hypersonic weapons. The SM-6 Standard missile, the Aegis sys-
ensemble. The safety net consists of a constel- tem’s latest interceptor, is the only weapon in the U.S. arsenal that
lation of low-orbit surveillance satellites and a has some capability to take on hypersonic threats, but it is not
regional hypersonic interceptor, called the Glide equipped to effectively intercept such threats. In July 2022, the U.S.
Phase Interceptor (GPI). GPI is capable of strik- Missile Defence Agency announced plans to spend US$1.3 billion
ing enemy boost-glide missiles while in the final on the development of advanced satellites that will be designed to

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