All about China’s new missile that can be launched from space, technology is based on….

China new missile: In what could be a major concern for India and US, China has achieved a technological breakthrough pertaining to capability to launch missiles directly from space. The report in the South China Morning Post claims that China has developed hypersonic missiles capable of reaching speeds up to Mach 20, 20 times the speed of sound. With this technology, China can now launch missiles from space, including from existing or small space stations. China’s might has been so upgraded that The design of these space-launched missiles is so advanced that conventional air defence systems may not be able to detect or intercept them in time. By the time conventional systems identify the trajectory of the missile, it is already very close to its target. It wont be wrong to say that China has got its Brahmastra.

How does this technology work?

The technology behind these missiles is based on hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), which operate in two stages. If China installs such missiles in any of its space stations, they can be controlled by command centres on Earth. These command centres can remotely launch hypersonic glide vehicles from space stations. The glide vehicles, traveling at extremely high speeds, will first re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and then head toward their targets, making their trajectory unpredictable and difficult to intercept.

China launched its hypersonic missile program in 2010. By 2017, it had conducted the first successful test and soon after began working on technology to launch missiles and rockets from space. According to an American scientific report, China tested its hypersonic missile program again in 2021, and now, in just 15 years, China’s hypersonic missile capability has moved from theoretical calculations to operational reality in space.

Can this threat be countered?

There are some ways to counter such threats from Chinese space-launched missiles. For example, it is possible to destroy the satellite or orbital platform from which the missile was launched. Along with the United States, China, and Russia, India has also acquired technology known as anti-satellite weapons to destroy satellites in space.

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