Can The U.S. Shoot Down An ICBM From North Korea ?

Summary and Key Points: The U.S. could intercept incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) using advanced and developing missile defense technologies.

-Ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, along with next-generation interceptor programs, offer improved discrimination between ICBMs and decoys. The U.S. Navy’s ship-based Aegis Combat System and the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor are now capable of targeting ICBMs beyond the atmosphere.

-Additionally, space-oriented programs are being developed to track hypersonic missiles with new constellations of low- and medium-Earth orbit satellites, enhancing the U.S.’s missile defense capabilities.

Can the U.S. Intercept an Incoming ICBM? Latest Technologies Offer Hope

The question of whether the U.S. could shoot down, intercept, or stop an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile is of fundamental importance to national security. It is as relevant as ever and is becoming more multifaceted.

The question might most immediately evoke a scenario involving North Korea, given the volatility of their leadership and their continued testing. According to recent reports, North Korea recently test-fired another ICBM. Yet the question is equally relevant in the context of America’s great power rivals. The pace of Chinese nuclear weapons modernization and production is certainly not lost on the Pentagon. Nor has anyone forgotten Russia’s arsenal of tactical, nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles and its larger ICBMs.

The answer to whether we could shoot these missiles down varies — it might depend on the positioning and type of available missile defenses. However, a number of current and fast-developing technologies suggest that yes, indeed, the Pentagon, U.S. military services, and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) would likely be well positioned to intercept an incoming ICBM. That capability will grow substantially in coming years due to a number of critical, promising programs.

Layers of Missile Defense

Of course, the ground based interceptors based at Fort Greely, Alaska and Vanderburg, California have been maintained. Indeed, they have even been upgraded with new computing and command and control technology. But the Pentagon is also making rapid progress with its next-generation interceptor program. Part of this technological maturation incorporates breakthrough technology designed to better discriminate countermeasures, decoys, and debris from actual ICBMs. Incoming ICBMs often travel through space with specific decoys and countermeasures designed to confuse missile defense interceptors, allowing the actual ICBM to continue on to its target. Newer “kill vehicle” sensor technology is better engineered to distinguish decoys from ICBMs and destroy the real threat.

A faster, more precise interceptor and kill vehicle should bring paradigm-changing improvements to U.S. missile defense. Naturally, many details of the next-generation program are kept secret for security reasons, but we know that several MDA industry partners have been developing, prototyping, and testing this critical technology.

In addition to this, U.S. Navy missile defense systems continue to see new breakthroughs as software upgrades to the ship-based Aegis Combat System continue to expand. Ship-based missile defense remains highly significant, as it can add unique defensive angles of approach with which to track and destroy an attacking ICBM. The Navy and MDA have found in testing that the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor variant, combined with cutting-edge software upgrades to the Aegis System, shows an ability to successfully intercept ICBMs.

That is a significant development. In the past, ship-based Aegis radar has been limited to long-range ballistic missile defense within the Earth’s atmosphere. Now, technological breakthroughs are arming missile defense interceptors such as the SM-3 IIA with the ability to track and destroy threats beyond the atmosphere. Raytheon’s SM-3 IIA has now been in development for several years. It is the result of a number of software upgrades, guidance technology enhancements, and form-factor alterations to enable breakthrough missile defense capability.

Finally, there are several space-oriented programs intended to not only improve missile defense technology, but also to generate an ability to carry out continuous tracking of hypersonic weapons. This is important because the speed of hypersonic weapons allows them to travel from one radar aperture or “field of regard” to another so quickly that ground-based radar and sensors are unable to track and target the threat. Industry is now working with the MDA on several space-oriented programs to address this challenge.

Hypersonic Missile Defense

Acquiring the ability to track and destroy hypersonic missiles requires the development of numerous attributes. These include non-line-of-sight targeting and connectivity; high-speed data sharing; AI-enabled information processing and transmission; and perhaps most important of all, the addition of new constellations of low- and medium-Earth orbit satellites to complement traditional geosynchronous higher-altitude satellites. Essentially, hundreds of new satellites need to go up to help blanket otherwise unreachable target areas and exchange threat tracking data quickly and accurately enough to ensure a targeting trajectory is not lost as a high-speed weapon transits from one field of regard to another.

This is why the Space Development Agency is accelerating its plan to launch 28 new satellites by 2025 through its $1.3 billion Tranche 1 Tracking Layer missile warning program. Space Development Agency Directory Derek Tournear explained last year that the multi-pronged launch initiative, which will break up 28 satellites into four different launches with seven satellites on each, is grounded on two conceptual pillars — proliferation and spiral development. Tournear explained the concepts by specifying the need for hundreds upon hundreds of satellites to operate in space while continuously gaining new capability every two years through spiraled development.

“We want to enable beyond line of sight targeting and get data for targets anywhere in the world. With new hypersonic glide vehicles, we need to detect them, track them and calculate a targeting solution to send down to an interceptor,” Tournear told reporters at a media event years back, according to a Pentagon transcript.

The point of the great increase in satellites is not only to establish redundancy and resiliency. It is also to use breakthrough “throughput” speeds to cover more of the Earth in real time while networking large numbers of lower-altitude satellites to one another.

About the Author: Kris Osborn

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.