Word: warhead
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...minutes following the target's launch, the interceptor will receive updated maps as the mock warhead soars over the ocean. Then, like a thirsty traveler about to cross a desert, the interceptor will take a final gulp of data on its nemesis' whereabouts and expected route just before blasting off some 20 minutes after the California launch...
...boosters--will be flying solo. Zipping across the heavens at 4,900 m.p.h., it will be about 1,500 miles from its target. Over the next six to eight minutes, the interceptor will try to hunt down its prey and guide itself into a suicidal collision with the warhead. It will be receiving guidance from far below as early-warning radar systems detect the incoming warhead. These systems hand off data to a so-called X-band radar system based on Kwajalein, which stabs the sky with a narrow beam of electronic pulses. The X-band's shorter wavelengths...
...interceptor's first job is to confirm where it is. It will do that by finding stars that match a map stored in its memory chips. Having fixed its own location, the interceptor will turn its telescope toward the target's expected location. As the interceptor and mock warhead travel to within 500 miles of each other, the interceptor should pick up the warhead, along with the decoy balloon and launch container. From here on out--in the final 100 seconds--the interceptor will be on its own, getting no guidance from the ground. But it will still be getting...
...crafty foe wouldn't limit itself to the Pentagon's single, simple decoy. The enemy could slip its warhead inside a decoy balloon and deploy it along with a dozen identical balloons, forcing the Pentagon into a futile effort to destroy all of them. The warhead might be cloaked in a shroud of liquid nitrogen, chilling it so that the interceptor's heat-seeking sensors couldn't find it. Chemical or biological weapons might be deployed in dozens of bomblets far too numerous to destroy...
Distinguishing between warheads and decoys requires a wealth of information the Pentagon wouldn't have in a real attack and wouldn't be likely to get. But Pentagon officials insist their relatively crude discrimination technologies will keep improving. They say measuring subtle differences in projectiles' mass, motion, reflection and rotation will enable the Pentagon to pluck the real warhead from among the decoys. But the officials decline to detail the technical wizardry behind their assertion, saying that divulging their techniques would only aid potential foes...