Did The Korean Missile Fail? Or Were The Americans Successful?

Reprinted from Jack’s Newswatch

I was thinking about the huge missile that Korea launched all day today as I followed the news…

Bravo to the Bush administration for its measured response to North Korea’s Fourth of July fireworks display.

The North’s missile tests, their date chosen to coincide with America’s Independence Day, were, as the president’s national security adviser called them, “provocative behavior.”

Yet the firing of the single intercontinental Taepodong II, which exploded in mid-air less than a minute after launch, just shows how unsophisticated Pyongyang is. The overall display, which included up to six other missile launches as of this morning, also demonstrates how desperate the country is for international attention.

…And I just chased something down that has been bothering me.

The ABL is designed to detect and destroy theatre ballistic missiles in the powered boost phase of flight immediately after missile launch. The aircraft loiters at an altitude of 40,000 feet. Missile launch is detected by a reconnaissance system such as satellite or Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and threat data is transmitted to the ABL aircraft by Link 16 communications. A suite of infrared, wide-field telescopes installed along the length of the aircraft’s fuselage detects the missile plume at ranges up to several hundred km.

The pointing and tracking system tracks the missile and provides launch and predicted impact locations. The turret at the nose of the aircraft swivels towards the target and a 1.5 metre telescope mirror system inside the nose focuses the laser beam onto the missile. The laser beam is locked onto the missile, which is destroyed near its launch area within seconds of lock-on. Where the missile carries liquid fuel, the laser can heat a spot on the missile’s fuel tank, causing an increase in internal pressure resulting in catastrophic failure. Alternatively, the missile is heated in an arc around its circumference and crumples under atmospheric drag force or its own G-force.

“Nah, couldn’t be – could it?”

It sure could be Jack!! I was never a true believer that the Star Wars SDI program was something that would work, but I also know laser technology fairly well. I also know that computers these days can accomplish amazing things, and the capability to use DSPs and high speed sampling is quite possible. In fact, capabilities of processors and DSPs are often measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second) and sampling in the 100’s of millions of samples per second can easily keep a focus on a moving object at high speed. Lasers travelling at the speed of light can zip (or zap as the case may be) 300km in 1 millisecond. i.e 1/1000th of a second.

If I were Pyongyang, I would be quite concerned about that failure.