History of Development and Deployment
In the Soviet Union, the SS-9 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (FOBS) was available. The early warning systems of the North American Ballistic Defense Command (NORAD). It’s hard to think of the FOBS and glider as anything but a reusable spacecraft. In actuality, China disputed claims that it had conducted orbital weapon testing, insisting that only a space aircraft had been used in the exercises in question.
As a warhead is placed in a stable orbit, it deorbits above the target. A warhead can complete a full circle if the destination and launch location are aligned. Although the earth is moving, the warhead still flies over the target because the horizontal motion is resisted in such a manner.
When it comes down to it, the fundamental issue is that the missile may be flown straight to a target, or it can be shot other way around the world and still reach its target over the southernmost pole rather than the north pole, which is where most early warning systems are aimed.
Fractional Orbital Bombardment System
Western defense specialists are concerned that China may have tested an orbiting bombardment weapon last summer, as reported by the Financial Times. A nuclear-capable glider was launched into orbit by China’s Long March rocket using a technology that allowed the glider to travel at hypersonic speeds toward its target.
If this information is accurate, it shows that China was making rapid progress in building weapons that can, to a significant part, avoid current pro-missile (ABM) defenses and the associated warning systems existing in America and the European Union.
As far as we know, China did not invent the Fraction Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). Russia developed an orbit bombardment system in the 1960s that could transport a nuclear warhead into orbit at a lower trajectory than ordinary fixed-trajectory ballistic missiles.
The maximum altitude of the missile will be around 150 km. Energetically, this would require a launch vehicle capable of placing the weapon ‘in orbit’. However the orbit was only a fraction of the full orbit, not continuous, and so there would be little need to control a precise orbit or maintain it for long.
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