The Pentagon is planning a new generation of
weapons, including huge hypersonic drones and
bombs dropped from space, that will allow the US to
strike its enemies at lightning speed from its own
territory.
Over the next 25 years, the new technology would free
the US from dependence on forward bases and the
cooperation of regional allies, part of the drive towards
self-sufficiency spurred by the difficulties of gaining
international cooperation for the invasion of Iraq.
The new weapons are being developed under a
program code named FALCON (Force Application and
Launch from the Continental US).
A US defense website has invited bids from
contractors to develop the technology and the current
edition of Jane's Defense Weekly reports that the first
flight tests are scheduled to take place within three
years.
According to the website run by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) the program is
aimed at fulfilling "the government's vision of an
ultimate prompt global reach capability (circa 2025 and
beyond)".
The FALCON technology would "free the US military from
reliance on forward basing to enable it to react
promptly and decisively to destabilizing or threatening
actions by hostile countries and terrorist
organizations", according to the DARPA invitation for
bids. The ultimate goal would be a "reusable
hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV) ... capable of taking off
from a conventional military runway and striking targets
9,000 nautical miles distant in less than two hours".
The unmanned HCV would carry a payload of up to
12,000 lbs and could ultimately fly at speeds of up to
10 times the speed of sound, according to Daniel
Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute in
Washington.
Propelling a warhead of that size at those speeds
poses serious technological challenges and DARPA
estimates it will take more than 20 years to develop.
Over the next seven years, meanwhile, the US air force
and DARPA will develop a cheaper "global reach"
weapons system relying on expendable rocket
boosters, known as small launch vehicles (SLV) that
would take a warhead into space and drop it over its
target.
In US defense jargon, the warhead is known as a Common Aero Vehicle (CAV), an unpowered bomb which
would be guided on to its target as it plummeted to
earth at high and accelerating velocity.
The CAV could carry 1,000 lbs of explosives but at
those speeds explosives may not be necessary. A
simple titanium rod would be able to penetrate 70 feet
of solid rock and the shock wave would have enormous
destructive force. It could be used against deeply
buried bunkers, the sort of target the air force is
looking for new ways to attack.
Jane's Defense Weekly reported that the first CAV flight
demonstration is provisionally scheduled by mid-2006,
and the first SLV flight exercise would take place the
next year. A test of the two systems combined would
be carried out by late 2007.
A prototype demonstrating HCV technology would be
tested in 2009.
SLV rockets will also give the air force a cheap and
flexible means to launch military satellites at short
notice, within weeks, days or even hours of a crisis
developing.
The SLV-CAV combination, according to the DARPA
document, "will provide a near-term (approximately
2010) operational capability for prompt global strike
from Consus (the continental US) while also enabling
future development of a reusable HCV for the far-term
(approximately 2025)". The range of this weapon is
unclear.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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