China’s “Orbital” Nuclear Missiles That Could Hit The U.S. From Space Rattles Pentagon; Why U.S. Fears FOBS?

If the threat posed by a rapidly expanding arsenal of air, ground, and sea-launched conventional and nuclear missiles from China was not enough, the United States is now grappling with the potential threat of a Chinese missile attack from low Earth orbit.

China could amass dozens of orbiting missiles with nuclear warheads in about ten years, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned on May 13. These missiles would be able to get to the US in significantly less time than conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the DIA said, as reported by Bloomberg.

The revelation was made in a chart unveiled by the DIA ahead of a White House statement on the threats to the United States that President Donald Trump’s newly launched initiative, the Golden Dome missile defense shield, will be designed to counter.

Of the many advanced missile threats listed in the chart, the most significant is the prospective expansion of orbiting, nuclear-armed space-based missiles in a “Fractional Orbital Bombardment System,” or FOBS, in China and, to some extent, Russia.

The chart described the FOBS as: “An ICBM that enters a low-altitude orbit before reentering to strike its target, with much shorter flight times if flying the same direction as traditional ICBMs, or can travel over the South Pole to avoid early warning systems and missile defenses. It releases its payload before completing a full orbit.”

This capability has broad strategic implications, whether used with conventional or nuclear warheads. However, it has not been fully developed or deployed by any country in the world, so this threat is still futuristic. According to the DIA, China could possess up to 60 of these missiles by 2035, whereas Russia could possess about 12.

The FOBS pose a bigger threat than ICBMs. Unlike traditional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with predictable ballistic trajectories, FOBS allow for unpredictable attack paths, as the warhead can de-orbit at any point during its orbit. Through these unusual approaches, it can easily get past missile defenses and early warning systems.

The threat of the FOBS first emerged during the Cold War when the former Soviet Union and the United States were locked in a tense missile and space race.

The Soviet Union developed FOBS in the 1960s, with systems like the R-36O missile. This missile, designed to evade US radar systems, which were primarily oriented to detect missiles coming over the North Pole, was deployed from 1968 to 1983. It was phased out after the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the SALT II Treaty of 1979 limited such systems.

Nonetheless, this threat returned in 2021 when China conducted a FOBS test flight. In July and August that year, China launched a Long March 2C rocket carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) into low Earth orbit (LEO). The vehicle partially orbited the globe before re-entering the atmosphere and maneuvering toward its target at hypersonic speeds.

Thus, combining hypersonic glide vehicles with orbital capabilities–something the world had not witnessed before.

A statement made by the US Space Force Lieutenant General Chance Saltzman, the Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations, Cyber, and Nuclear, encapsulated the sentiment in the US at the time. “Sometimes I hear hypersonic missiles, and other times I hear suborbital,” he stated.

Once the nature of the test was assessed, alarm bells rang in the Pentagon. “What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a weapon system. And it is very concerning,” Mark Milley, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an October 2021 interview on Bloomberg Television. “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention.”

What worried the Pentagon the most was that when faced with a capability like that, the amount of time a defender has to detect and characterize an approaching nuclear strike before deciding how to respond could be reduced.

The chart shows potential improvements in conventional intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities in addition to the FOBS. It warned that by 2035, China may field up to 700 nuclear-tipped ICBMs, up from 400 now. Meanwhile, Russia’s current inventory of 350 might increase to 400.

Further, China will have at least 132 submarine-launched ballistic missiles by 2035, up from 72 now; Russia will have 192, which is the same as now.

In addition, the DIA chart predicted that China may field up to 4,000 “Hypersonic Glide Vehicles” by 2035, up from the current 600, whereas Russia will have about 1,000, up from 200-300 now. The vehicles glide to their targets for at least half of their flight after being launched by ballistic missiles. The chart indicates that although they are capable of carrying a nuclear payload, China may already “have deployed a conventional’ missile ‘with sufficient range to strike Alaska.”

It is pertinent to note that as these threats posed by China become bigger and more technologically advanced, Washington is now developing the Golden Dome, projected as a missile defense umbrella that will protect the continental United States from every missile threat, irrespective of its origin– from ground, air, sea, or space.

Trump’s Golden Dome

Shortly after taking office, Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 27 for the development of “Golden Dome” and directed the Pentagon to submit architectural plans for the program in about 60 days.

He made the case for a missile defense shield, citing a potential missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States”.

Trump’s executive order said that he wanted a plan that would protect the US homeland from “ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks from peer, near-peer, and rogue adversaries.” Although no specific adversaries were mentioned, it was assumed that he was referring to China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

According to the chart published by the DIA, China is the top adversary that warrants the development of the Golden Dome.

While little information exists on the architecture of the Golden Dome, we understand that it has been envisioned as a space-based missile defense initiative. The Golden Dome would require a sophisticated network of satellites, space-based radar systems, orbital interceptors, and maybe directed energy weapons to destroy threats during the boost phase, when a hostile missile is just being launched.

The Space Force would be responsible for deploying, coordinating, and controlling this vast defense grid. The executive order explicitly endorsed two satellite programs: the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) and the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).

Additionally, the executive order supports the development of “underlayer and terminal-phase intercept capabilities.”

According to reports, the goal is to create an extra missile defense system that may “underlay” a more advanced defense, such as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, by giving a target more interceptor missile shots.

However, these are just generic ideas, and nobody knows what the Golden Dome architecture looks like.

“No one has defined what the Golden Dome is,” Representative Ken Calvert, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, said in an interview last week. “Is it defending the entire Lower 48 and Alaska? What are we doing and how are we doing it? I’ve heard from every consultant in town that’s trying to get in the middle of this thing.”

Notably, Trump’s much-discussed Golden Dome missile shield project was the second-biggest winner in the proposed USD 150 billion House and Senate Armed Services committees (HASC) defense spending boost for the Pentagon. The legislation set aside a whopping USD 24.7 billion for the ambitious missile defense shield.

However, the Congressional Budget Office stated last week that the US might have to spend up to $542 billion over 20 years to develop and launch the network of space-based interceptors, the least proven and perhaps most controversial part of the system.

For now, the Golden Dome remains a work in progress.