Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues

Abstract

Members of Congress and Pentagon officials have placed a growing emphasis on U.S. programs to develop hypersonic weapons as a part of an effort to acquire the capability for the United States to launch attacks against targets around the world in under an hour. Hypersonic weapons, like all long-range ballistic missiles, can travel faster than Mach 5, or about 1 mile to 5 miles per second. This interest is driven by both the perceived mission need for conventional prompt strike systems and concerns about falling behind Russia and China in the development of these technologies. The United States is pursuing two key technologies for this purpose: boost-glide systems that place a hypersonic glider atop a ballistic missile booster or shorter-range rocket systems, and hypersonic cruise missiles that would use scramjet technologies.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 14, 2020
Accession Number
AD1092436

Entities

People

  • Amy F. Woolf

Organizations

  • Congressional Research Service

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Counter WMD
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerospace Craft
  • Anti-Ballistic Missiles
  • Boost Glide Vehicles
  • Booster Rocket Engines
  • Congress
  • Fleet Ballistic Missiles
  • Hypersonic Cruise Missiles
  • Hypersonic Glide Vehicles
  • Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
  • Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles
  • National Security
  • Prompt Global Strike
  • Rockets
  • Strategic Weapons
  • Supersonic Combustion Ramjet Engines
  • Test And Evaluation
  • United States Strategic Command

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Missile Defense Systems.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Hypersonics