How do ICBM early warning systems differentiate between a real threat and a launch of a normal rocket intended to go to space?
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Heres how the US does it, if they are not warned.
First is the infrared satellites that orbit the earth. They instantly detect the heat from a missile launch.
So a little blip appears in North Korea for example. Launch detected. But infrared isnt accurate enough to know anything other than some hot gases just got shot out of something.
Powerful high resolution radar stations called X Band are positioned around the world, especially aimed at countries that might attack the US. This radar will show you a high resolution of the missile as its launched.
They can very quickly work out its trajectory, based on the angle of launch and its speed. So they know what the missile is gonna do – and if its planning to come back down.
Then intelligence comes in – do we have any information that provides context to this launch? North Korean chatter about a missile test for 3 months? Okay maybe its that! But if there is a power struggle with hawks? Maybe an attack.
At this point the President is probably going to be directly looped in.
So then the question is – where did it launch from? How many? And what is it going to hit?
They will notice quite quickly that the missile is only going to land in the sea of Japan and so they don’t act.
Its 100% behaviour based to be honest. If the launch is detected from their land based launch pad where they do space stuff its probably a space rocket. If its coming from the nuclear silo, probably an attack.
If a missile is launched and is aimed at the United States or its allies, they will retaliate, and are unlikely to wait to see what kind of warhead it is.
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