Rocket Report: Pentagon needs more missile interceptors; Artemis II clears review

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SpikeTheHobbitMage

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  • #123
    YetAnotherBoris said:
    The question is, what do you do with your fancy laser interceptors if the enemy chooses to attack you while the sky is overcast with a low cloud deck, or while you're in dense fog, or while it's raining or snowing, or while your interceptor position is blinded by a smoke round (or obstructed by smoke plumes from nearby fires)?

    I think Ukraine's approach of counter-drone drones is much more versatile, and guaranteed to have lower per-shot cost than that of the attacking drones simply because the interceptors don't have to be as large or as long-range or carry as much payload to be effective.
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    The counter-drones also have the advantage that if they miss they can be recovered for another attempt later. I was going to say 'return to base' but that complicates IFF and risks 'return to sender'. Having a designated landing site somewhere downrange would be more practical.
     
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    Klive Aleksaander

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  • #124
    nimelennar said:
    That can't be right.

    They rebranded their logo colours from navy blue and white to red and black.

    What else could investors even be looking for?!
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    According to Wikipedia:

    ARCASpace was developing several rocket systems, both orbital and suborbital, under the EcoRocket program. These vehicles include the CER rocket systems, the EcoRocket Demonstrator, Nano, 5 & Heavy, and the A1 strategic anti-ballistic interceptor. ARCA did not launch a vehicle above the Karman line, or sent a payload to orbit, the majority of their projects were abandoned due to various reasons, often including financial or regulatory constraints before the company went out of business in 2026.
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    Wickwick

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  • #126
    wagnerrp said:
    That's the whole point. They are comparable to gun systems, not interceptors. We haven't deployed significant amounts of laser weapons, but we also haven't deployed significant amounts of gun weapons, despite being a developed system that is demonstrated to be effective against these sorts of threats.
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    The ones I'm thinking of were built into a cargo or tanker aircraft and were intended to take out ICBMs during their boost phase. I'm not thinking of pea shooters.
     
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    wagnerrp

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  • #127
    Wickwick said:
    The ones I'm thinking of were built into a cargo or tanker aircraft and were intended to take out ICBMs during their boost phase. I'm not thinking of pea shooters.
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    Those "pea shooters" are >100kW, versus YAL-1 at ~1MW. They're smaller, but not small. YAL-1's biggest benefit was that it was at airliner cruise altitude attacking ballistic missiles even higher than it, significantly avoiding horizon and atmospheric issues. That only works with a limited target set and immediately takes your system from tens of millions to hundreds of millions. And you can still only engage one target at a time. And now you have aircraft in the air over top an active anti-aircraft zone.
     
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    tratclif

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  • #130
    YetAnotherBoris said:
    The question is, what do you do with your fancy laser interceptors if the enemy chooses to attack you while the sky is overcast with a low cloud deck, or while you're in dense fog, or while it's raining or snowing, or while your interceptor position is blinded by a smoke round (or obstructed by smoke plumes from nearby fires)?

    I think Ukraine's approach of counter-drone drones is much more versatile, and guaranteed to have lower per-shot cost than that of the attacking drones simply because the interceptors don't have to be as large or as long-range or carry as much payload to be effective.
    Click to expand...
    The Ukrainians are also testing UK-built laser systems. It's not either-or, but what is appropriate for conditions.
     
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    EllPeaTea

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  • #131
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    SpikeTheHobbitMage

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  • #133
    tratclif said:
    The Ukrainians are also testing UK-built laser systems. It's not either-or, but what is appropriate for conditions.
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    Less "what is appropriate" and more "see what sticks". Necessity is the mother of invention because it motivates people to try anything and everything to make it work. Come up with a way to take a drone down with a slingshot launched badger and I guarantee that you'll see badger launchers popping up all across the country. Substitute 'badger' with the weapon of your choice and you've got the current situation.
     
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    DanNeely

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  • #135
    1773610705103.png
     
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    SkyeFire

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  • #136
    wagnerrp said:
    Those "pea shooters" are >100kW, versus YAL-1 at ~1MW. They're smaller, but not small. YAL-1's biggest benefit was that it was at airliner cruise altitude attacking ballistic missiles even higher than it, significantly avoiding horizon and atmospheric issues. That only works with a limited target set and immediately takes your system from tens of millions to hundreds of millions. And you can still only engage one target at a time. And now you have aircraft in the air over top an active anti-aircraft zone.
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    And the ABL, IIRC, only worked against TBMs (Scud-class), only during boost phase, and was limited to 100 miles range or less. And could only put enough energy on target after that target was above the lower atmosphere (30k-50k ft minimum, IIRC). It functioned, under test conditions, but not well enough to be tactically useful, especially considering its other constraints.

    Lasers are generally lousy weapons for use in the atmosphere, doubly so at low altitudes. Unlike popular misconceptions, laser beams of this type aren't simple pencil-like cylinders -- they're conical. The beam has to be diffuse enough at the emitter so as not to melt the optics, but still be focused down enough to achieve sufficient wattage/area to achieve a burn-through. One side effect is that using a laser across a broad range of... ranges... requires some kind of adaptive optics that can change the focal length. And those optics have to adapt fast enough to deal with atmospheric distortion, thermal bloom, and all the various jitter caused by every element of the lasing system, from the main turret actuators to the coolant pumps to the rain hitting the unit or the ground vibrations of explosions going off nearby.

    Even if very tight spot size (say, 10mm) can be achieved, getting burn-through requires either holding that spot within its own radius for some seconds (a very tricky proposition), or using such high power levels that burn-through can be achieved in minimal dwell time. Each of those has its own issues.

    Then there's the maintenance issues. Laser emitters have to be kept clean. A single small speck of dust can lead to an emitter burning itself out over use -- I've lived this, in industrial lasers, which are much lower power. The issue scales with power.

    As does cooling. Even the best lasers on the market (last time I was in the market, it's been a few years) needed something like minimum 5x input power as you could achieve in output power, and all that extra energy had to be extracted as waste heat. A simple 4kW (output) laser circa 2005 needed more than 30kW electrical input (it wasn't the best laser even at the time, and efficiencies have improved since), and enough refrigeration equipment to freeze ~1/4 of an entire NHL-size hockey rink (plus the extra power to run that).

    Bottom line: lasers have a place as part of a nested IADS, but barring some major breakthrough, I don't see them replacing CRAM or various interceptors any time in the near-to-mid future.
     
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    MLMichael

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  • #137
    Statistical said:
    No it is not. If anything it increases the likelihood of Iran and other countries developing nuclear weapons. If Iran had nukes they wouldn't have been attacked ergo game theory says they should develop nukes.
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    Hmm, we attacked Germany, Italy and Japan, and those countries never developed nukes. Why should whatever government replaces the Islamic Republic? You do understand that the Iranian people have been in open revolt for the last three months and are cheering us on, right? If the Islamic Republic ever got nukes, they have promised to use them, so game theory says they should be stopped.
     
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    AliSard

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  • #138
    MLMichael said:
    Hmm, we attacked Germany, Italy and Japan, and those countries never developed nukes. Why should whatever government replaces the Islamic Republic? You do understand that the Iranian people have been in open revolt for the last three months and are cheering us on, right? If the Islamic Republic ever got nukes, they have promised to use them, so game theory says they should be stopped.
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    Yeah, those little girls’ families are definitely grateful!
    As to your first attempt at a point, you can’t equate post WW2 geopolitics to now at all, especially given how many recent examples we have that show that if you really don’t want someone stomping around your country the best way to prevent it is to have The Bomb.
     
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    Hydrargyrum

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  • #139
    Statistical said:
    Which illustrates the US needs a lower capability cheaper interceptor. I mean it is US so it isn't going to be $10k or even $30k but swatting $30k drones with $100k drones works given the US larger economic base.

    The issue is that our "cheap" interceptors (i.e. stinger) are ultra short range and low fire rate. Really need the anti-drone ground base equivalent of RAM.

    View attachment 130388

    Now RAM is also about $1M a pop so a straight copy isn't going to help. More like something similar to RAM in the sense you have a launcher which can knock out 20 to 30 incoming threats but one optimized against lower performance threats. So a cheaper lower performance missile, maybe even one without active onboard guidance. The launcher could do the guidance making the missile cheaper. If you need to spam hundreds of missiles to stop hundreds of threats then the cost of the launcher is less material than the cost of the missile.
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    I would have thought that CIWS or C-RAM type weapon, firing 20mm or 30mm airburst cannon shells, would be the way to go against relatively low speed cruise drones, rather than missiles. Anything that's effective against incoming rockets or mortar shells ought to be able to successfully engage a Shahed, shouldn't it? And the economic trade should be a lot more favourable firing relatively dumb bullets rather than guided missiles.

    I guess maybe they're too short range (even shorter than Stinger).
     
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    Cthel

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  • #142
    MLMichael said:
    Hmm, we attacked Germany, Italy and Japan, and those countries never developed nukes. Why should whatever government replaces the Islamic Republic? You do understand that the Iranian people have been in open revolt for the last three months and are cheering us on, right? If the Islamic Republic ever got nukes, they have promised to use them, so game theory says they should be stopped.
    Click to expand...
    Because the US offered them room under its nuclear umbrella.

    Do you expect Trump to offer Iran similar protection? Especially since he is already threatening to remove it from Germany and Italy
     
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    EllPeaTea

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  • #143
    SpaceX have published https://www.spacex.com/launches/sl-17-24 with details of a Starlink launch from California, currently scheduled for about 7:35pm local time on the 16th.
    SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is targeting the launch of 25 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

    A live webcast of this mission will begin about five minutes prior to liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the X TV app.

    This will be the 14th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched NROL-126, Transporter-12, SPHEREx, NROL-57, and nine Starlink missions. Following stage separation, the first stage will land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

    There is the possibility that residents of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties may hear one or more sonic booms during the launch, but what residents experience will depend on weather and other conditions.
    Click to expand...
    The booster being flown is B1088 which last flew on February 7th.
     
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    EllPeaTea

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  • #144
    SpaceX have published https://www.spacex.com/launches/sl-10-46 with details of a Starlink launch from Florida, currently scheduled for about 6:26am local time on the 17th.
    SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is targeting the launch of 29 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

    A live webcast of this mission will begin about five minutes prior to liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the X TV app.

    This will be the 11th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched SES O3b mPOWER-E, Crew-10, Bandwagon-3, mPOWER-D, CRS-33, and five Starlink missions. Following stage separation, the first stage will land on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
    Click to expand...
    The booster being flown is B1090 which last flew on February 16th.
     
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    EllPeaTea

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  • #145
    Successful EVA from the Chinese Space Station:
    Andrew Jones said:
    Didn't see the usual day-or-two-before heads-up for this, but China's human spaceflight agency announced Shenzhou-21 astronauts Zhang Lu & Wu Fei completed a 7-hour EVA at 1135 UTC today. The usual installation of debris protection devices among the tasks.
    Click to expand...
     
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    YetAnotherBoris

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  • #146
    hark said:
    Japanese H3-30 static fire test with new engine configuration - 3 hydrolox engines instead of previous 2, 0 SRBs.

    Click to expand...

    Weird to see the Japanese labeling their own hardware in English ("Movable Launcher 5"). Or is English the conventional engineering language in Japan (sort of how Latin and Greek used to be the scientific languages of Europe?)
     
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    Statistical

    Statistical

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  • #147
    Hydrargyrum said:
    I would have thought that CIWS or C-RAM type weapon, firing 20mm or 30mm airburst cannon shells, would be the way to go against relatively low speed cruise drones, rather than missiles. Anything that's effective against incoming rockets or mortar shells ought to be able to successfully engage a Shahed, shouldn't it? And the economic trade should be a lot more favourable firing relatively dumb bullets rather than guided missiles.

    I guess maybe they're too short range (even shorter than Stinger).
    Click to expand...

    Your last point is the challenge. CIWS would make short work of suicide drones. We had them guarding our FOB in Iraq and they can swat a falling mortar shell out of the sky so a slow flying drone in level flight would be child's play.

    The limited range though would mean you need hundreds of them especially if trying to protect infrastructure spread out across a country. They do provide good terminal defense against high value targets.

    Ideally you want something relatively cheap but which can engage over a larger area. That likely requires missiles on the ground, missiles in the air, or guns in the air. On the last one the only platform we have in high numbers is high performance jets and their cannons are optimized for blistering high rate of fire to take down other high performance jets.

    It isn't an unsolvable problem it just a problem that hasn't been solved. The AF will pushback but drones could destroy enemy drones in large numbers. A subsonic drone large enough to carry an auto cannon and have a long loiter could wipe out entire fleets of long range suicide drones. Likewise putting a missile track radar on a drone would allow your ground based interceptors to reach out further against drones flying close to the ground. Not even saying those are the ideal options or how we will solve this just that our current arsenal is pretty poorly structured for taking out large numbers of low cost long range suicide drones especially at range. You would want to take them out of range. Even if you have CIWS and/or lasers to provide terminal defense you want to thin the numbers to give those terminal defense options better odds. An F35 is $80M a Shahed is $50k. An F35 could take out multiple of them with very little risk until it ran out of munitions but you can build 1500 of the later for the price of one of the former.
     
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    EllPeaTea

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  • #149
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    GreenEnvy

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  • #152
    Avid space's view you can see the flames a bit better. Note for me the clock is out of sync on their stream. The timestamp in the lower right showed 1:47pm when you see the static fire, but the audio was 5 minutes earlier at 1:42 (when it actually happened).

    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXUaqscyiU
     
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    EllPeaTea

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  • #153
    EllPeaTea said:
    SpaceX have published https://www.spacex.com/launches/sl-10-46 with details of a Starlink launch from Florida, currently scheduled for about 6:26am local time on the 17th.

    The booster being flown is B1090 which last flew on February 16th.
    Click to expand...
    Livestreams:
    Spaceflight Now:

    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKaLZY0S-QI

    NASA Spaceflight:

    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djZIkcLXvjU

    Space Affairs:

    View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP0w5qFv2IU
     
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    YetAnotherBoris

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  • #155
    EllPeaTea said:
    Artemis II rollout slips a day. April 1st launch is still available.
    https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/03/16/nasa-eyes-new-date-for-artemis-ii-rocket-rollout/
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    This is weird:
    Teams identified an electrical harness for the flight termination system on the core stage needed replacement. They have since addressed the issue and continue to complete preparations to roll out later this week.
    Click to expand...
    Like, how or why? If the harness was bad from the start, then why did they only discover that now? Otherwise, if it went bad only recently (since the first rollout), what could have possibly caused that, for such a component, over such a time span? 🤨
     
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    Statistical

    Statistical

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  • #156
    YetAnotherBoris said:
    This is weird:

    Like, how or why? If the harness was bad from the start, then why did they only discover that now? Otherwise, if it went bad only recently, what could have possibly caused that, for such a component, over such a time span? 🤨
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    Good thing it is the FTS not something important. /s

    Seriously those are some good questions hopefully we find out later. Could it have been damaged when replacing the FTS batteries? I mean that is plausible but why wasn't it caught right away the FTS batteries were replaced a week ago.
     
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    hark

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  • #157
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    uhuznaa

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  • #158
    Statistical said:
    Good thing it is the FTS not something important. /s

    Seriously those are some good questions hopefully we find out later. Could it have been damaged when replacing the FTS batteries? I mean that is plausible but why wasn't it caught right away the FTS batteries were replaced a week ago.
    Click to expand...

    I guess some issues already may have turned up at this point but they only decided about what to do later. Or they did a test after replacing the batteries and found some problem only then.
     
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