Chapter 721 - 697 Trial

"Really want to conduct a terminal interception? I’d actually recommend hitting it during the ascent or mid-course phase, because terminal interception of the warhead is too difficult to incinerate, and the success rate is hard to predict."

Zhong Cheng still had some concerns and hoped to convince Lin Ju to alter the plan.

There are three stages of windows for intercepting missiles: the ascent from the ground to the atmosphere, the mid-course flight to the highest point of the trajectory, and the terminal phase re-entering the atmosphere.

In each of these stages, the missile’s flight speed increases sequentially, its maneuverability gradually strengthens, and the difficulty of interception also progressively grows.

In traditional anti-missile measures, most focus on mid-course interception, when the warhead has weaker maneuvering capabilities, slower speed, and there is ample time for an attack window.

Terminal phase interception is much harder, as by then only the warhead, coated in thick thermal insulation, keeps accelerating. The relative speed from a ground interception is terrifyingly high, making it extremely difficult to intercept; even a slight deviation could mean an error of several kilometers.

The reason for not attacking during the easiest interception phase at launch is mainly that one needs to wait for the target to enter the missile defense system’s range, which generally means the anti-missile itself is a highly accurate medium or longer-range ballistic missile.

However, for a laser satellite, the situation is entirely different.

For it, thousands of kilometers on Earth are merely a few minutes of travel or just a slight increase in deflection angle.

After continuous algorithm upgrades, Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 had actually been able to lock onto a target from a synchronous orbit over thirty thousand kilometers high; it’s just that its laser system isn’t good enough, the actual maximum interception altitude is still only 400 kilometers, necessitating a descent to a low Earth orbit.

From a space-based perspective, all three phases of the missile’s trajectory are completely exposed to its field of view, naturally allowing it to calmly select the weakest link to maximize interception efficacy.

Furthermore, the launch phase has another advantage: there is no need to irradiate the heavily protected warhead; it is sufficient to destroy the rocket body still providing thrust, achieving an extremely high fault tolerance and nearly one hundred percent success rate of interception.

The DF15B used for this experiment, although an older model, is a type of intermediate-range missile with a high terminal velocity that mostly uses Ground Drilling Bombs; the military believes that an interception during the ascent or mid-course phase would be enough.

However, Lin Ju disagreed with this view, stating that Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 had the capability to destroy warheads, and to show off one’s muscles, naturally one must appear stronger.

After all, the maximum output power of Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 exceeded 1 megawatt; at the warhead, there would be over 700 kilowatts anyway, enough to disrupt its aerodynamic shape with basic certainty.

"Don’t worry, Director Zhong, trust our technology; no one knows laser satellites better than we do."

"But there’s only so little time during terminal flight, and the irradiation needs to last for 30 seconds. This... never mind, you are the professionals."

Zhong Cheng picked up the communicator and directly connected to the electronic warfare/anti-submarine reconnaissance plane over the South Sea:

"Gaoxin 2004, Gaoxin 2004, please check again if the infrared system is working normally."

"Gaoxin 2004 copies, the infrared monitoring system is functioning normally."

How to know whether the laser satellite has hit the target, or by how much it has missed?

New Yuan’s method is a ground-based monitoring network. The target aircraft tests were conducted near the base, with ample various visible/non-visible light monitoring methods, naturally allowing for confirmation of laser accuracy.

But in the vast sea, there was definitely no complex ground-based monitoring network; the solution was infrared monitoring.

If the laser beam misses the target and falls into the sea, it would cause local heating of the seawater. By monitoring whether there’s an abnormal temperature change in the target area, one can know whether the laser has missed, and by how much, in order to make adjustments.

The aircraft doing this job didn’t even need extra modifications; the specialized anti-submarine patrol planes could handle this task.

They are known as the bane of submarines because submarines, when sailing, cause a slight increase in the surrounding seawater temperature due to waste heat and propulsion, resulting in different infrared characteristics.

And that’s at depths of tens or hundreds of meters; now, monitoring changes in sea surface temperature would only be simpler.

Of course, Zhong Cheng had no wish for such a thing to happen when Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 started operating; he silently anticipated the performance of the laser satellite.

This action was aimed at just one audience member; without knowledge of Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1’s existence, others would only know this as a failed experiment, but America’s technical experts would naturally understand the implications after analyzing the trajectory.

...

"One more minute."

Zhao Xiaowen glanced at the time on his watch and looked up to locate Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 on the screen.

In the past few days, it had been lowering its orbit and had returned to a near-Earth orbit at an altitude of 300 kilometers, thanks to its ion thruster—conventional fuel would have been used up long ago.

A year’s time hadn’t caused any malfunctions in the laser satellite; all parts still operated smoothly, having charged its capacitors early, ready to fire at full power when needed.

This time, in addition to several of New Yuan’s low orbit satellites, a number of reconnaissance satellites from the military and the space agency also provided guidance so Zhao Xiaowen wasn’t worried about failing.

At 18:29, the radar screen was the first to begin the alarm, followed by the infrared alarm. The DF15B which had taken off from the inland south had a bright tail flame that was swiftly caught by the sensitive satellites.

Qianjun Rod No. 1 compared the information transmitted by these supporting satellites with its own observations to analyze the approximate flight path, immediately adjusted the laser reflector, and aimed in advance at the potential interception zone.