Pentagon Hunts For New Radar As Hypersonic Missiles Put US Defenses To The Test

The Pentagon is searching for a new generation of highly mobile radars capable of tracking hypersonic missiles as these weapons increasingly challenge U.S. missile defenses.

Hypersonic missiles have already seen ample combat use in conflicts around the world, with Russia deploying them against targets in Ukraine and Iran claiming to have used them in strikes against Israel in 2024, Reuters reported. The Missile Defense Agency’s Mobile Land-Based Sensors Project Office is seeking prototype concepts for a new system known as the Forward-Based Mode Radar Next to counter hypersonic missiles and other threats, according to the System for Award Management (SAM).

These weapons present one of the most difficult challenges confronting modern missile defenses. Hypersonic weapons can travel at least five times the speed of sound, while some types can maneuver during flight instead of remaining on a predictable ballistic trajectory, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“It is the combination of these attributes that makes it challenging to defend against hypersonic weapons. Of course, the most obvious is that the high speed compresses the time for defensive response,” Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado Boulder, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In addition, unlike ballistic missiles, these systems have to be tracked all along their trajectory because they can maneuver. And, they fly in a region of the atmosphere above aircraft and below spacecraft where we are not used to looking.”

One defense analyst told the DCNF that new hypersonic systems, otherwise known as boost glide vehicles, can avoid interception entirely by entering high levels of the atmosphere that missile interceptors cannot reach or operate in.

“It is important to distinguish between short-range and long-range systems, and between boost-glide vehicles and air-breathing systems,” Steve Fetter, a senior fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, told the DCNF. “For long-range boost-glide vehicles, such as the Russian Avangard, the most significant factor is the flight altitude. By flying at 40-50 km altitude, BGV [boost glide vehicle] can prevent intercept by exoatmospheric missile defense interceptors such as GBI or SM-3, which have sensors that cannot operate at that altitude.”

Some hypersonic missiles can travel so fast that heat generated from air resistance can blind the interceptors attempting to catch up to them.

“As regards BGVs, the main challenge is interception, not tracking,” Fetter told the DCNF. “Because of the high relative velocity between a long-range BGV and an interceptor, sensors for the end-game intercept must be on the interceptor. But flying [at] such high speeds at an altitude of 40-50 km will generate lots of heat. It will be extremely difficult to design a sensor that can see through the heat generated by the interceptor.”

The agency plans to use its Nimble Options for Buying Layered Effects acquisition framework and Other Transaction Authority to rapidly develop advanced radar prototypes capable of providing improved early warning, tracking and discrimination of emerging missile threats, according to SAM.

The primary objective is to develop a “highly mobile, rapidly deployable sensor system” that can seamlessly integrate into the existing U.S. missile defense architecture, according to SAM.

“Existing U.S. missile defense systems such as Patriot will have some effectiveness against hypersonic weapons. No defensive system is 100% effective, and the key question is what level of enemy weapons getting through out defenses is acceptable,” Boyd told the DCNF. “You would ideally like to intercept very early in the weapon’s trajectory, during the boost phase, but generally it is not possible to locate our interceptors close to an enemy’s launch sites.”

The radar is specifically intended to improve the military’s ability to track and discriminate between “complex, high-speed, and maneuverable threats,” including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles, according to the SAM listing.

There are generally two major categories of modern hypersonic weapons: hypersonic cruise missiles powered by high-speed engines and hypersonic glide vehicles launched aboard rockets before separating and gliding toward their targets, according to the GAO. Hypersonic glide vehicles can maneuver as they travel toward their targets, complicating efforts by defensive systems to determine where they are headed and maintain the precise tracking data needed for an interception.

Their extreme speed also shrinks the amount of time available for military commanders and missile-defense systems to detect a weapon, determine its trajectory and respond before it reaches its target, per the GAO.

The United States also faces increasingly sophisticated hypersonic arsenals abroad. China has continued expanding what the Pentagon has described as the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal while developing both conventional and nuclear-capable hypersonic technologies, according to the Department of War (DOW).

China has developed systems including the DF-17, which pairs a ballistic missile rocket booster with a hypersonic glide vehicle, while Beijing has continued advancing additional hypersonic weapons, according to the DOW.

The Pentagon has pursued a layered response to the threat that combines new sensors, satellites, command-and-control networks and interceptors designed to maintain tracks on highly maneuverable weapons throughout their flight.

The Space Development Agency (SDA) awarded roughly $1.75 billion in July for 36 additional missile-warning, missile-tracking and missile-defense satellites, including spacecraft based on the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor concept, according to the SDA.

The additional satellites are intended to expand the military’s ability to detect and track advanced missile threats from space and provide data to the broader missile-defense network, according to the SDA.

The Missile Defense Agency is separately developing the Glide Phase Interceptor to destroy hypersonic missiles while they are traveling through the glide portion of their flight, according to the GAO.

The Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile capable of reaching hypersonic speeds and differs from more advanced hypersonic glide vehicles that can maneuver extensively during flight, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Hypersonic missiles are not necessarily impossible to intercept. Ukraine used a Patriot missile-defense system to shoot down a Russian Kinzhal missile in 2023, according to the DOW.

“Hypersonic weapons have been used by Russia against the Ukraine, and by Iran against Israel. In neither situation did their use end the conflict,” Boyd told the DCNF. “In some cases they were shot down. These weapons do represent a new challenge, but they are not 100% effective and can be defended against to some extent.”

The ability of hypersonic weapons to fly quickly and maneuver makes maintaining an accurate track especially important, helping explain the Missile Defense Agency’s emphasis on better sensing and discrimination rather than focusing only on interceptors.

The new Forward-Based Mode Radar Next is intended to strengthen precisely that part of the defensive chain by providing enhanced early warning, tracking and discrimination against emerging missile threats, according to SAM. The agency also wants the new radar to integrate directly into the existing missile-defense architecture, allowing information collected by the sensor to contribute to the broader network responsible for tracking incoming threats.

The government issued the Forward-Based Mode Radar Next notice on Aug. 10, but the posting is only a pre-solicitation notice and does not yet constitute a formal request for proposals, per SAM.

“The U.S. already has extensive missile defense capabilities, but they were not designed for these new hypersonic threats,” Boyd told the DCNF. “There is a need for a wider array of distributed sensors that can detect and track these missiles across the globe, and this information needs to be communicated to control centers for coordination of a defensive response. One of the biggest challenges is that in a full-scale conflict with a near-peer, hypersonic missiles will not be fired one at a time. They will be used in salvos along with many other weapons.”