Nobody is planning to put a hypersonic glide vehicle on the next U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile, but that doesn’t mean it could never happen, according to careful statements Wednesday by the Air Force general who advises the service’s leadership about nuclear weapons.
The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), silo-based missiles slated to replace the Minuteman III fleet around 2030, has an “open architecture” that would let the Air Force “roll different technologies … into GBSD,” Lt. Gen Richard Clark, deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said in a webcast question-and-answer session with reporters. The Mitchell Institute hosted the event.
Hypersonic glide vehicles would allow for extremely high-speed delivery of payloads at lower altitudes and along different flight paths than those achievable by current ballistic and cruise missiles. Militaries globally covet the technology as a means of evading any deployed air defense.
Clark said the GBSD isn’t required to have any hypersonic capability before being deployed, and declined to say whether the weapon eventually should have such a capability. In March the Congressional Research Service said, without citing a source, that the United States was not developing nuclear options for such hypersonic glide vehicles. However, Clark left the possibility on the table, for those listening.
Lockheed Martin, which has taken a forward role in U.S. defense-hypersonics development, is part of the Northrop Grumman-led team expected to win a roughly $20 billion Air Force contract this month to build the GBSD.
The Air Force plans to buy more than 650 of the new missiles missiles, including spares and test weapons, and will use them to replace the 400-strong Minute III fleet on a one-for-one basis. The missiles could initially use W87-0 warheads provided by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). These warheads now tip some Minuteman III missiles and would need flight tests aboard the GBSD — using dummy warheads — to be certified for the next-generation missiles.
Eventually, the Air Force will mix in the NNSA’s planned W87-1 warhead into the GBSD fleet. U.S. nuclear forces always deploy at least two versions of a warhead, in case there is an unforeseen, design-specific problem with one of them.
On Aug. 6, the Senate confirmed Clark as superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colo. He is slated to take up his new assignment later this year.
