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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

The drag argument is that ballistic missiles spend a fair amount of time above the atmosphere, and that hypersonic missiles don't. Such that in the end, the ballistic missiles get there faster.

The article, though, doesn't mention that the arc trajectory of ballistic missiles means they are spotted faster: https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/print-e...

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The article, though, doesn't mention that the arc trajectory of ballistic missiles means they are spotted faster.

But such missiles are nowadays - as far as I know - primarily detected via infrared from space and not radar stations near the target which turns the atmospheric trajectory into a disadvantage due to heating of the vehicle which is also mentioned in this article.

I wonder if this fact is connected to the advances in anti-satellite weapons in recent years.

That’s a great visual! Thanks for sharing. One thing to note from the article is these hypersonic weapons will generate insane amounts of heat which will show up on satellite imagery so they’re not as stealthy as that visual purports. Additionally, they’re powered by the same type of rocket boosters as an icbm so the same type of early launch detection system would still work to alert the moment a missile has been launched.

For ground based targeting radar at the destination at least. Not sure how relevant this is with satellite based radar or infrared detection systems.

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