Pentagon Requests Prototypes For World’s First Space-Based Anti-Missile System Built to Destroy ICBMs Early On

The United States Space Force has taken a first major step towards developing its Space-Based Interceptor program, with the release of a Request for Prototype Proposal seeking multiple industry partners to pursue design work and deliver functional systems. The program is part of broader investments to develop the world’s largest layered missile defence systems, with space base systems being intended to orbit the earth to detect and destroy ballistic missiles at earlier stages than land-based systems can. The program underscores the Pentagon’s shift towards integrating space as an active domain of defence, rather than solely one for surveillance, communications, and command-and-control. It is being pursued in parallel to other space warfare programs including the possible development of space aircraft capable of combat roles such as strategic bombing.

The Space-Based Interceptor program is one of the most ambitious parts of America’s missile defence modernisation efforts, and has potentially revolutionary impacts on the balance of power between Washington and its primary potential adversaries China, Russia and North Korea. The program is expected to provide a capability to intercepting missile threats during their boost phases, during which they are particularly vulnerable but currently considered largely out of reach. This would respond to all three states’ development of hypersonic missiles capable of evading all existing defences and striking from unexpected directions. China’s defence sector in 2021 for the first time tested a glide vehicle capable of flying around the world, which caused particular concern in the United States, as countries in the Western world are considered years away from achieving a similar capability. The ability to engage such a missile before it accelerates outside the Earth’s atmosphere provides a potentially far more viable option for engaging.