Earlier this month, North Korea carried out two hypersonic missile tests that put the international community on high alert and prompted new US sanctions on the country. In Brazil, a test on a smaller scale, but involving similar technology, went unnoticed by the majority of the population.
Hypersonic weapons are one of the main focuses of the current global arms race, which involves powers such as the US, China and Russia. They are missiles that fly at speeds of at least 6,000 km/h, which is five times the speed of sound.
This type of weaponry is difficult to detect and almost impossible to shoot down with air defenses. In addition, it can carry both common explosives and nuclear warheads.
There are two types of them: missiles and “gliders”. These have drawn more attention from military analysts. But when thinking about gliders, forget about slow-flying long-wing leisure planes. We are talking about hypersonic flight, at speeds that would leave behind the Concorde commercial plane (already out of operation) or the modern fighter planes.
That is, the hypersonic glider is a small unmanned aircraft that is launched on the tip of a rocket. When it reaches the stratosphere, the aircraft separates from the rocket and activates its supersonic engine, called scramjet and proceeds at even higher speeds.
The glider then begins its descent and adopts a trajectory closer to the earth’s surface, where it can maneuver until it reaches its target.
But why is it better than the other missiles?
Transcontinental ballistic missiles (called ICBMs in military parlance) follow a parabolic trajectory. They soar into space and then re-enter the atmosphere at speeds in excess of Mach 25, or 30,000 km/h, until they reach their target.
They are faster than hypersonic missiles. However, once launched, their trajectory can be more easily detected and predicted. Thus, anti-aircraft defenses can be activated.
Hypersonic missiles, on the other hand, can maneuver to avoid radar for longer, which makes defenses with current technology ineffective.
Race for hypersonic weapons spreads across the planet
It was this type of hypersonic glider that North Korea has tested twice this month. One of the tests even had the presence of leader Kim Jong-un, who had not attended this type of military event for over a year.
North Korean news agency KCNA said the hypersonic glider launched on January 11 had flown 600 kilometers. Then, it changed direction and covered another 240 kilometers, performing corkscrew-style maneuvers until it reached a predetermined target at sea.
It was the third test of its kind and apparently the most successful by North Korea. The first took place in September 2021.
But, who leads the race for hypersonic weapons is Russia. In 2018, Moscow launched the Kinzhal missile and the following year added the Avangard glider to its arsenal, which is launched connected to a conventional ICBM missile.
China tested its hypersonic glider in August last year, a month ahead of the North Koreans. It even completed a full Earth orbit, then re-entered the atmosphere and nearly hit a programmed target in China.
The Americans were startled by the test, which came to be called the “Sputnik moment”, in reference to the 1957 event, when the Russians became the first to launch a satellite into orbit around the planet.
The United States already did flight tests of its hypersonic glider in mid-2011, but would be behind China and Russia in this technological race, according to analysts. Washington said it would present its functional weaponry this year 2022.
Hypersonic technology can change the dynamics of many aspects of warfare. One of them is, for example, naval warfare. Once located by the enemy, an aircraft carrier would hardly be able to defend itself from an attack by a hypersonic missile, atomic or not. Similar reasoning holds for strategic ground targets such as military bases, nuclear facilities, and command and control structures.
However, in the case of large-scale nuclear war, the issue is more controversial. A hypersonic missile could evade anti-missile barriers and detonate virtually anywhere on the planet, however defended.
But, theoretically, powers like the United States and Russia have a large number of nuclear warheads installed on ICBM missiles. They are more than enough to overwhelm any air defense system. This would make hypersonic technology less relevant.
In practice, there is a new arms race. Russia, China, the US and North Korea are clearly more advanced. But hypersonic technology is also being developed by India, Japan, Australia, France, Germany and Brazil. They are at different stages of research evolution.
How is the Brazilian hypersonic project?
The Brazilian hypersonic glider will be about four meters long and is called 14-X, in honor of Santos Dumont, the father of aviation. The PropHyper Project has been developed by the Air Force and the company Orbital Engenharia.
It is considered a strategic project, but it is in a stage of development much earlier than those of powers such as China and Russia, as well as North Korea.
Its first flight test took place a month ago, on December 14, at the Alcântara Launch Center, in Maranhão. The purpose of the test was to test supersonic combustion, that is, “starting” a type engine. scramjet.
This engine was coupled as a load to a rocket called the Hypersonic Acceleration Vehicle, developed in Brazil. This is necessary as the engine can only be started when the aircraft is already traveling at a speed about five times faster than sound.
Unlike a regular jet engine, the scramjet it doesn’t have an ignition system or compressors and turbines. The burning of the air and fuel mixture occurs in the combustor with the friction caused by the passage of air at high speed.
According to the FAB, the test went like this: during the rocket’s ascent at a speed of 7,500 km/h to the stratosphere, hydrogen was injected into the supersonic combustor of the 14-X’s engine and it was turned on.
The aircraft reached a height of 30 kilometers and crashed into the sea 200 kilometers from the launch site. The test’s success was proven by footage and telemetry data, according to the Air Force.
The Brazilian hypersonic glider will go through at least three more test phases. In the next step, the 14-X will be launched into the atmosphere to test aspirated hypersonic propulsion.
This is one of the most challenging parts of technology development. Ballistic missiles and spacecraft spend most of their flight outside the atmosphere, where there is no friction with the air. That means less pressure and heating.
But in a flight that takes place mostly in the atmosphere, as in the case of missiles and hypersonic planes, everything gets much more complicated.
To give you an idea, the speed is so high that it modifies the air molecules around the aircraft. They are broken down and given a charge, in a process called ionization. The temperature can go over 2000 degrees in a few minutes. That is why it is necessary to develop resistant materials and the aircraft must have a very specific aerodynamics.
In a subsequent phase, the 14-X will make a hypersonic gliding flight, so that the in-flight maneuvering system can be tested. In the final testing phase, the hypersonic glider will be put to the test in a complete flight, from launch to maneuvers in gliding flight.
The project started in 2006, but the FAB did not respond when this final phase should take place or the total cost of the project. This is military secrecy. The institution also did not detail in which scenarios 14-X will be used when it is ready.
He only informed that the objective is to master the technology of hypersonic propulsion and enable Brazil to enter into new space projects.
In theory, this knowledge can support, in the future, the construction of drones and civil or military aircraft much faster than the current ones. But in today’s international scenario, the main application is indeed the construction of hypersonic missiles.
State funding
Possessing hypersonic missiles or long-range cruise missiles are ways of trying to dissuade other nations from using force to impose their will on Brazil. This is the logic of the entire arms race and also the country’s defense strategy.
Military analysts say they believe the hypersonic projects that are most advanced among world powers have received large-scale state funding. In this model, private or state-owned companies in the defense industrial base have the country’s government as their main client. That is, its production depends on the national defense budget.
In Brazil, there is state investment, but not enough to guarantee the survival of strategic defense companies. Thus, they end up resorting to financing from private banking institutions.
“For this reason, these companies end up depending a lot on exports, which is a very uncertain market,” said researcher Eduardo Brick, from the Defense, Innovation, Training and Industrial Competitiveness Studies Center at the Fluminense Federal University (UFFDEFESA). This slows down technological advances compared to other countries that use different model.
A Planalto source involved with the Brazilian Defense issue explained that the government would like to invest more in strategic defense companies, but budgetary restrictions do not allow it.
In North Korea, technological advances in the area of defense occur in parallel with a scenario of shortages of food, clothing and housing for the population. Kim Jong-un said that in 2022 these social problems will be a priority.
Brazil, in recent years, decided to give priority to economic aid for the population during the pandemic, according to the government source. Regardless, exports of defense products broke a national record last year, reaching the level of US$ 1.65 billion (R$ 9.4 billion).
#Brazil #missile #technology #tested #North #Korea