The article states that it's unmanned and emphasises intelligence capabilities.
I thought SR-71 had some strike capabilities, but I could be mistaken.
I thought SR-71 had some strike capabilities, but I could be mistaken.
Brag: I've actually seen a YF-12, up close, at Edwards AFB. NASA used them for testing for many years.
That raises the interesting question of how large, hypersonic UAVs are expected to be used.
What kind of intelligence mission benefits from a fast flyby but cannot be performed by a satellite?
What kind of attack is fast but cannot be from a guided weapon?
Perhaps they expect the spy satellites to be immediately blown up in this conflict.
Like handling security cameras... you can fire an artillery shell at a security camera, but most of the time security cameras are mission ineffective if you just shine a bright enough flashlight (or laser) at them.
There's no need to cause an international incident by blowing something up when all you need is a bright light for a couple easily predictable minutes.
On the other hand a stealthy hypersonic flyby is probably invisible.
Another military aspect civilians never want to talk about is photo analysis depends on illumination and rando satellite passes can't see into valleys and get messed up if the shadows are weird enough. Just because technically a satellite passed within range of Afghanistan as a whole country, doesn't mean you can see what's happening on the wrong side of a mountain with bad illumination and bad view angle. There's a lot of satellites but not THAT many. Afghanistan used to have boots on ground to launch UAVs but not so much anymore.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a30175425/...
The orbits of satellites are known. The target can arrange activities to occur when there is not a satellite overhead. A fast flyby can occur at any time with little or no warning.