The United States finally completes its infrared missile warning system and is already preparing the next one
The US Department of Defense has barely completed the deployment of its SBIRS satellite constellation, a secretive and highly sophisticated observation technology created to detect intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fire in real time, calculate its trajectory and warn the White House of a possible attack.
The recent launch of the sixth and final satellite in the Pentagon's space-based anti-missile early warning network is the final link in the so-called Space-Based InfraRed System, or SBIRS. It is the space-based outpost of the Missile Defence Agency (MDA) and the US intelligence community.
The primary mission of the SBIRS architecture is to detect and track the infrared signals produced by the first propulsion stages of intercontinental ballistic missiles during their boost phase. This occurs once they are fired and ejected from their vehicle, ship, submarine or underground silo container, when a powerful tongue of fire radiates a huge infrared signature detectable from space with the appropriate technologies.
It is precisely in the short period of the boost phase that ballistic missiles are slowest and easiest for SBIRS to track. They are therefore more vulnerable to interception by the different families of anti-missile missiles embarked or positioned on the ground by the MDA defence system.
The new infrared electronic eyeball watcher is the GEO-6 SBIRS, which has been delivered from Cape Canaveral, Florida, by a US Space Force Atlas V rocket to an altitude of 36,000 kilometres. The secretive LM 2100M platform developed by Lockheed Martin weighs about 4.5 tonnes and was launched into its final orbit two days before the 77th anniversary of the explosion of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
What little is known about SBIRS is that the cost of a satellite is around $1 billion, and that each one has two powerful telescopes in the infrared radiation spectrum, one with scanning sensors and the other with observation sensors. The former sweeps large swathes of territory to detect ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) launch signals. The observation sensor is more sensitive, focuses on smaller areas and is supposed to be able to immediately detect even the infrared signature of medium-range ballistic missiles and rockets.
The launch of SBIRS GEO-6, which completes the deployment of the infrared surveillance umbrella and the construction of the system after 26 years of effort, took place against the backdrop of international concern and instability caused by the war in Ukraine. The take-off has been accelerated by President Vladimir Putin's order that Russia's Strategic Forces, which are responsible for firing ICBMs with atomic warheads, be put "on special service status", a euphemism for activating them at their highest state of alert.
The Biden Administration wants to detect the firing of the most modern Russian and Chinese ICBMs as early as possible in order to react in time to shoot them down in their initial phase. From Beijing, it wants to shield itself from the improved DF-41s, which its Defence Minister, General Wei Fenghe, said in June are "for self-defence and China will never use them first". From the Kremlin, of the announced entry into service at the end of this year or early 2023 of the new RS-28 Sarmat, which for the moment has been coded by NATO as SS-X-30 but which, when operational, will be christened SS-30 Satan 2.
According to the Russian defence ministry, the Sarmat has a reduced boost phase, which shortens the time period in which it can be tracked by the sensitive SBIRS telescopes and infrared detectors, making it more difficult to intercept in its first moments of flight. Moscow also claims that the RS-28 is equipped with advanced countermeasures equipment, allowing it to penetrate the Pentagon's missile defence system with impunity.
Official Russian sources cite a take-off weight of around 210 tonnes. It can accommodate between 10 and 15 multidirectional warheads loaded with conventional explosives, chemical agents, atomic bombs or even project one or more Avangard-type hypersonic missiles in mid-air.
With a length of 35 metres - the height of an 11-storey building -, 3 metres in diameter and three propulsion stages, Moscow claims that the Sarmat is capable of reaching a maximum speed of Mach 20.7 - equivalent to 25,358 km/h - higher than any other known missile. And it can describe different trajectories and reach up to 18,000 kilometres, a distance within range of which is, for example, the state of Texas.
The SBIRS constellation that has just taken shape in its final configuration has been a real headache for the Air Force, which contracted its development 26 years ago, in October 1996. The Space Force has inherited it and is already working flat out on its successor. Its provisional name is NGG - an acronym for Next Generation OPIR GEO System - a new constellation to ensure a more robust, more sensitive, more responsive and more resilient global warning system than the current SBIRS.
The Space Force's chief of operations, Lieutenant General John "Jay" Raymond, is trying to prevent the NGG programme from suffering the serious problems that have plagued SBIRS, which, despite being developed by industrial powerhouses Lockheed Martin (prime contractor) and Northrop Grumman (sensors), has been plagued by numerous serious technical shortcomings and cost overruns. The project was given the green light as early as October 1996 with a budget of 7.5 billion dollars, but ended up in 2022 eating up 19.9 billion dollars, an increase of around 265 & percent.
The main problems have been in the software to exploit the real-time observation sensor data and also in the flight software, which has had to be redesigned, which has not been easy. The difficulties have been so great that in 2006, faced with the risk of SBIRS cancellation, the Air Force initiated a parallel project called the Alternate Infrared Sensor System. SBIRS GEO-1 liftoff took place in May 2011 - nine years late - but remained flawed and did not enter service until two years later.
From the perspective of the NGG programme's second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Leroy Brown, what the Pentagon wants is to "develop our nation's best space-based deterrent structure to maintain space superiority in the 21st century". It will consist of three large satellites positioned at 36,000 kilometres and others in low orbit, at an altitude of less than 2,000 kilometres, whose data integration "will improve global enemy missile launch detection and technical intelligence gathering".
As is already the case with the SBIRS constellation, the 460th Space Wing stationed at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, will receive the information detected by the satellites and perform the tracking operations. A new automated system called FORGE will operate the satellites and process the collected data, a function that will be managed by a joint control centre between the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Space Force.
Coordinator America: José Antonio Sierra
