[PapaBear3625]

It's assumed that the HGV is launched aboard an ICBM, separates from the missile's final stage while still in space, some 62 miles above the planet's surface, and then zooms back into the atmosphere at more than ten times the speed of sound—around mach 10 or 7,680 miles per hour. That's fast enough to enter American airspace before we even react. By comparison, today's cruise missile technology tops out at around 500 to 600 mph.

If it needs an ICBM to get it into space, then it's a reentry vehicle. It gets there no faster than a standard ICBM warhead. What it DOES bring to the party is perhaps the ability to maneuver on its way to the target, to evade anti-missile defenses.

The ICBM which launches it will also generate a thermal signature that our satellites will spot.

[Steely Tom]

If it needs an ICBM to get it into space, then it's a reentry vehicle. It gets there no faster than a standard ICBM warhead. What it DOES bring to the party is perhaps the ability to maneuver on its way to the target, to evade anti-missile defenses.

The ICBM which launches it will also generate a thermal signature that our satellites will spot.

X-51 WaveRider could be militarized very quickly, I'm guessing.

I say could. Present political conditions make that very unlikely. In fact, I won't be surprised if X-51 is defunded. Too expensive. Diverts needed dollars from vote-buying activities.

[tet68]

It may be going Mach 10 when it enters the atmosphere
but it will have to slow down the lower it gets
any way.

[ScottfromNJ]

“What it DOES bring to the party is perhaps the ability to maneuver on its way to the target, to evade anti-missile defenses.”

I’ll bet an advanced Brilliant Pebbles system could handle it. It’s been said that Brilliant Pebbles would’ve completely destroyed Saddam’s Salvo Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War. Unfortunately Slick Willy scrapped the program and it was never re-started.