guy, forget it.
S300,S400,Patriot ,Arrow 2 and HQ9 are all terminal interceptors.
mid-course interception is completely different from the above toys.
You're funny chickom. Don't make me intellectually r@pe you like I've done on so many occasions before.
The S-400 is designed to hit modern and future attack aircraft at a distance of 400 km: tactical and strategic aviation jets, cruises of the Tomahawk type and other missiles", the article notes. Triumf successfully fights air targets, manufactured with the use of "stealth" technology at all altitudes of their combat operation and at maximum distances. When creating this system, Russian specialists used latest technologies in the radar industry, microelement base and computer engineering.
Russian S-400 Missile Can Hit Radar, AWACS Aircraft
With respect to India's in-development PAD:
Classified by trajectory phase
Ballistic missiles can be intercepted in three regions of their trajectory: boost phase, midcourse phase or terminal phase.
* Boost phase: intercepting the missile while its rocket motors are firing, usually over the launch territory. Advantages: bright, hot rocket exhaust makes detection, discrimination and targeting easier. Decoys cannot be used during boost phase. Disadvantages: difficult to geographically position interceptors to intercept missiles in boost phase (not always possible without flying over hostile territory), short time for intercept (typically about 180 seconds). Example: aircraft-mounted laser weapon Boeing YAL-1 (under development).
* Mid-course phase: intercepting the missile in space after the rocket burns out. The coast period through space before reentering the atmosphere can be several minutes, up to 20 minutes for an ICBM. Advantages: extended decision/intercept time, very large geographic defensive coverage, potentially continental. Disadvantages: requires large/heavy anti-ballistic missiles, sophisticated powerful radar often augmented by space-based sensors, must handle potential space-based decoys.
* Terminal phase: intercepting the missile after it reenters the atmosphere. Advantages: smaller/lighter anti-ballistic missile required, balloon decoys won't work, smaller, less sophisticated radar required. Disadvantages: very short reaction time, possibly less than 30 seconds, less defended geographic coverage. Possible blanketing of target area with hazardous materials in the case of detonation of nuclear warhead(s).
Classified by intercept location relative to the atmosphere
* Endoatmospheric anti-ballistic missiles are usually shorter ranged. Advantages: physically smaller/lighter, easier to move and deploy, endoatmospheric intercept means balloon-type decoys won't work. Disadvantages: limited range and defended area, and limited decision and tracking time for the incoming warhead. Example: MIM-104 Patriot and Advanced Air Defence.
* Exoatmospheric anti-ballistic missiles are usually longer ranged. Advantages: more decision and tracking time, larger defended area with fewer missiles. Disadvantages: larger/heavier missiles required, more difficult to transport and emplace than smaller missiles, must handle decoys. Example: Ground-Based Midcourse Defense and Prithvi Air Defence.
Missile defense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See also:
http://www.dtic.mil/descriptivesum/Y2008/MDA/0603882C.pdf
With regard to the NCADE, an air-launched derivative of the PAC-3, that offers a limited midcourse intercept capability alongwith a terminal phase intercept:
Air Launched Hit-to-Kill / NCADE
The Air Launched Hit-to-Kill system is a less ambitious proposal for a less capable boost phase system, which involves equipping a late model F-15C with the APG-63(V)3 phased array radar and a derivative of the Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missile. The Missile Defence Agency awarded a study contract early in 2007.
There are no reports as yet of a Russian analogue to this system, involving integration of the 9M96E/E2 missile with the Su-30/35 Flanker (as of Dec. 2007, this is null & void) although the Novator R-172 with similar size and performance is being integrated on the Su-35BM.
To date most investment has however been put into terminal phase intercept weapons, some of which provide a limited midcourse intercept capability.
Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Systems
The sea-based Aegis is another operational system rumoured to be able to intercept long-range missiles during the mid-course phase.
While midcourse interception is a challenging feat, it is not insurmountable, and infact can be relatively easily 'decoyed' using inveiglers that exhibit thermal characteristics similar to those of the warhead. After the boost-phase, the relatively small payload is in space and travels along a ballistic trajectory (like a thrown stone) at several kms. a second, reaching an altitude of about 1,200 km before descending towards its target. This phase lasts for about 20 to 25 minutes. The mid-course constitutes the longest part of the missile's trajectory, thus theoretically giving MD systems considerable time to intercept a long-range missile. Missiles loose heat as they enter outer space (the exo-atmosphere) and are thus difficult to track via traditional space-based heat satellites. The new generation of more sophisticated satellite sensors is better equipped to detect missiles, but these sensors can be deceived if an opponent uses decoys that have the same temperature characteristics as the real missile. Ground-based radars are more effective - both in detecting, and identifying missiles, but are limited in the sense that their operable deployment requires them to be deployed geographically close to the opponent's territory due to the curvature of the Earth. In the beginning of the midcourse phase, missiles reach their maximum velocity and jettison their engines, thus becoming less vulnerable and explosive and making lasers and kinetic vehicles less effective. Interception with rockets carrying conventional or nuclear warheads would be more likely to succeed, but countries like the United States are focusing on hit-to-kill technology.
An interesting paradox in the converse approaches of Indian and Chinese missile defense paths is that India has announced its ABM program will be expanded to include an anti-satellite program. While China is migrating its anti-satellite research into the missile defense arena, India is doing the opposite. In both cases, however, the technology is fundamentally the same: the development of kinetic energy interceptors — so called “hit-to-kill” technologies, that use a bullet to hit a bullet.
In line with my prediction before, and in the previous post about the missile being a modified S-400- or some variant thereof, and from the relatively reasonable assumption that the mid-course interceptor would use the same solid motor as an extant missile: either the HQ-9, DF-11/15, DF-21, KT-1, it seems feasible to speculate that the missile is an HQ-19, albeit with a kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) sufficiently unique, or a HQ-409 (the “409” is derived from “863-409,” the focus area of the 863 Program that has been dedicated toward development of KKV-related technologies). Other aspects of the interceptor, such as motor or space surveillance, would probably also have been in the 863-4XX series.