Return of Raptor/Talon Missile Defense Drones?

THE best time to shoot down a hostile missile is straight after take-off. During this initial “boost phase” it moves more slowly, is easier to spot (because its exhaust plumes are so hot) and presents a bigger target (having not yet ditched its first-stage fuel tanks). A bonus is that the debris may come crashing down on the country that launched it—your enemy—rather than you.

But the main advantage of “boost-phase missile defence” is that a missile that has breached the atmosphere and begun its midcourse glide can throw off lots of decoys. In the vacuum of space, tinfoil balloons, or clouds of aluminium strips known as chaff, will keep pace with the missile that released them. Not even the American military can distinguish sophisticated decoys from a warhead (though it might manage with crude ones designed by Iran or North Korea, say).

The downside, though, is that such an approach requires speed. Interceptors (anti-missile missiles) fired from sea or land will probably be too late. Ronald Reagan’s proposed solution was “Star Wars”: armed satellites orbiting above hostile nations’ launchpads. It cost a packet, didn’t work and was scrapped in the 1990s. But some experts say the moment has arrived for a sequel: high-altitude drones.

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During the early 1990s there was a program called RAPTOR/TALON  run by DARPA to design and build a long loitering drone equipped with missiles to shoot down just launched ballistic missiles.  I was intensely interested back in the day, but the program was cancelled.  It might have been a victim of technological unreadiness.  Or it might have been a victim of politics.  Or it might have been a victim of the fact under the Clinton administration there was a lot of legal debate whether or not armed drones counted as cruise missiles under the treaties the US had signed with the Soviet Union (and Russia inherited).  All I know is that it faded away.

However, I always found the program to be fascinating.  Imagine the possibilities.  Rather than for suppressing, say Russia's, ICBMs or Iran's, think SLBM defense.  If the escalation hits a high point, the President could order the USAF (or USN) to deploy the defensive drones.  They fly out and take orbit (airplane version) off the coasts.  While it would never be impregnable, it would potentially reduce the usefulness of sub launched nukes.  Not a bad thing.  

Even more so, it kills the lone lunatic launch.  Even better.