Their cost is prohibitive in the US, not China.
Chinese Hypersonic Developments (HGVs/HCMs)
- Thread starter A.Man
- Start date
AMiner vastly overstates the number for all countries and institutions.
Chinese team claims ‘highly reliable’ communications during hypersonic flight
- Researchers from space physics laboratory in Beijing say they made ‘breakthrough’ during ‘multiple’ hypersonic weapon tests
- They say their system on a high-frequency network could overcome the plasma blackout seen at this extreme speed
A team of scientists in Beijing claim they have achieved “highly reliable” ground communications during test flights.
The system could allow ground control to stay in constant contact with a hypersonic vehicle as it travelled at more than 20 times the speed of sound at high altitudes, researchers from the Science and Technology on Space Physics Laboratory said.
Lead scientist Li Bin and the team called it a “major breakthrough” in a paper on their findings in Chinese peer-reviewed journal Missiles and Space Vehicles on August 10.
It could potentially overcome the communication blackout that happens when man-made objects such as re-entry capsules and ballistic missiles reach this extreme speed in the atmosphere.
The team said their tests suggested they could get around this by using a high-frequency communication network made up of ground stations, satellites and ships at sea. The network supports real-time streaming of data collected by the sensors on a hypersonic platform.
The global coverage of the network means it could be used by the military, for example, to carry out intelligence gathering or precision strikes on targets anywhere on the planet, according to the researchers. It would also allow commanders to hit the “kill button” to abort a mission at any time.
“For a problem such as a missile flight failure, the ground command centre needs to send safety control instructions to the vehicle in real time to ensure that it crashes in a predetermined area or self-destructs,” the team said in the paper.
“After multiple test flights, highly reliable measurement and control communication capabilities – suitable for high-speed flight conditions in near space – have been established.”
The cause of the communication blackout is the plasma sheath – a thin layer of extremely hot, electrically charged particles that appear on the surface of the vessel at hypersonic speed. These particles reflect, absorb and distort radio signals, and turbulence makes it hard to measure and predict what they will do, the paper said.
For Chinese hypersonic weapons, flight control is mainly done in the high-frequency Ka band used by the military. Its signals have a more concentrated beam that can break through the plasma barrier.
In addition, a pointed tip at the front of the weapon can reduce the thickness of the plasma sheath and improve communications, Li’s team found.
They developed a “perspiration cooling tip” that could endure high-speed flight. A liquid or gas containing electrophilic substances is used as the “sweating agent” – a spray that reduces the temperature as well as the electron density of the plasma sheath, the paper said.
The scientists reduced the amount of metallic elements in the weapon’s insulation and placed the main antenna at its rear to improve the strength and stability of signals.
They also looked at the use of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology – used for 5G equipment – for hypersonic communication, finding that “the conflict between transmission power and power consumption” could be eased by using GaN in the Ka-band power amplifier.
China has set up one of the world’s largest communication networks, with ground stations in Africa, South America and northern Europe, while relay satellites and signal tracking ships extend coverage to remote areas such as the Arctic and Pacific oceans.
“A large number of test flights” found the network meant communication could be established with a hypersonic weapon in 0.8 seconds, according to the paper.
The team said they had used powerful algorithms to make sure the correct data was transmitted amid noise from the hypersonic flight and potential jamming.
In November, General John Hyten, vice-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised the alarm over China’s hypersonic weapon development, saying it had conducted hundreds of tests in the last five years while America had done nine.
Hyten told CBS News that the US military was on alert after China tested a missile last summer that flew around the world and dropped a hypersonic glide vehicle at a designated location.
Chinese researchers have in recent months claimed to have made progress in hypersonic weapon technology, including infrared sensors that can identify a , a that can penetrate the plasma sheath, and a test flight of a .
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someone commented on this SCMP post and i m posting that too.
The significance of this breakthrough is hard to underestimate. With constant contact with the hypersonic missiles, information can be channeled to the missiles on flight, thus achieving more precise strikes. Even the US manages to get its hypersonic missile to fly, they still lacks the technology to make their sensors to work in high temperatures. China has conquered this problem and is obviously ahead of Both Russia and the US. These missiles could mean winning or losing a war. Now China must protect its technology, because we are entering a time when the US is going to copy and steal Chinese technologies.
The US are being idiots. I mean they expect to win this race without any hypersonic wind tunnels. The US just does not care or know what infrastructure is anymore.
Some companies like SpaceX have great simulation tools. I mean the tool they used to design the Raptor engine and Dragon capsule is terrific. Simulates turbulent flow at high Mach pretty well. But where are the wind tunnels?
Some companies like SpaceX have great simulation tools. I mean the tool they used to design the Raptor engine and Dragon capsule is terrific. Simulates turbulent flow at high Mach pretty well. But where are the wind tunnels?
