US To Unveil Missile Defence System In Space

Picture courtesy NASA via US Department of Defense.

The Trump administration is due to unveil a new strategy for a more aggressive space-based missile defence system.

The system aims to protect against existing threats from North Korea and Iran, and counter advanced weapon systems being developed by Russia and China.

Details about the administration's Missile Defence Review - the first compiled since 2010 - are expected to be released during a visit by US President Donald Trump to the Pentagon.

The review concludes that in order to adequately protect America, the Pentagon must expand defence technologies in space and use those systems to more quickly detect, track and ultimately defeat incoming missiles.

Specifically, the US is looking at putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles when they are launched, according to a senior administration official.

The US sees space as a critical area for advanced, next-generation capabilities to stay ahead of the threats, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the US can strike incoming enemy missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.

Last year, Mr Trump ordered the creation of a US Space Force, which he said would be "separate but equal" to the US Air Force.

The new strategy is aimed at better defending the US against potential adversaries, such as Russia and China, who have been developing and fielding a much more expansive range of advanced offensive missiles that could threaten America and its allies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously unveiled new strategic weapons he claims cannot be intercepted. One is a hypersonic glide vehicle, which could fly 20 times faster than the speed of sound and make sharp manoeuvres to avoid being detected by missile defence systems.

"Developments in hypersonic propulsion will revolutionise warfare by providing the ability to strike targets more quickly, at greater distances, and with greater firepower," Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, told Congress last year.

"China is also developing increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile warheads and hypersonic glide vehicles in an attempt to counter ballistic missile defence systems."

Current US missile defence weapons are based on land and aboard ships.

Mr Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have both emphasised space-based capabilities as the next step of missile defence.

Senior administration officials earlier signalled their interest in developing and deploying more effective means of detecting and tracking missiles with a constellation of satellites in space that can, for example, use advanced sensors to follow the full path of a hostile missile so that an anti-missile weapon can be directed into its flight path.

Any expansion of the scope and cost of missile defences would compete with other defence priorities, including the billions of extra dollars the Trump administration has committed to spending on a new generation of nuclear weapons.

An expansion would also have important implications for American diplomacy, given long-standing Russian hostility to even the most rudimentary US missile defences and China's worry that longer-range US missile defences in Asia could undermine Chinese national security.

Asked about the implications of Mr Trump's efforts to improve relations with Russia and strike better trade relations with China, the administration official said that the US defence capabilities are purely defensive and that the US has been very upfront with Moscow and Beijing about its missile defence posture.

The release of the strategy was postponed last year for unexplained reasons, though it came as Mr Trump was trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.