Friday is here, and the 'A Taste of Science for the Weekend' corner is back — number 91.
This time: MIRV rockets, and the connection between multiple-warhead missiles and communications satellites.
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Recently we encountered a new type of Iranian threat — missiles with a splitting warhead.
But although the Iranians would love to possess true multiple-warhead missiles, they are very far from achieving that.
Iranian missiles actually release a cluster of small submunitions with limited damage capability, and they are nowhere near the sophistication of a genuine MIRV missile.
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MIRV missiles were developed during the Cold War by the United States, with the goal of carrying multiple nuclear warheads on a single missile.
The advantage of a multiple warhead is the ability to strike a large number of targets with a single launch, as well as making interception significantly more difficult.
Unlike the Iranian missiles, these release their warheads in outer space before re-entering the atmosphere, with each warhead released at a precise position and timing to strike a specific target on the ground — even targets in different cities.
The strike range of such a missile is enormous, because even a slight deviation in the warhead's release point in space translates into a very large distance on the ground.
The Iranian submunitions, by contrast, are released at an altitude of just a few kilometers above the ground, so their impact footprint spans only a few kilometers.
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According to various reports, the first time in history such a missile was used in combat was by Russia in its war against Ukraine in 2024. Beyond that, the technology is known primarily from tests rather than operational use.
Today, efforts are underway to develop MIRV missiles in which each warhead is equipped with an independent navigation system. This addition makes it possible to achieve high strike accuracy even if the release point in space is not perfectly precise.
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With the rise of satellite communications using small satellites, similar technology has been gaining momentum for launching them into space.
On SpaceX's Transporter missions, for example, a single rocket carries a large number of satellites into space each time, releasing them gradually to place each satellite at its precise orbital position.
In the video you can see the launch of the Transporter-15 mission, which carried more than 100 small satellites into space.
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Another factor that makes MIRV attack missiles extremely complex to develop is that the warheads must pass through the atmosphere on their way to Earth, unlike satellites, which remain in space.
Atmospheric re-entry involves pressures and temperatures that can tear apart and melt even massive metals, and adding effective thermal shielding to each warhead individually is far more challenging than shielding a single large rocket.
In the meantime, the Iranians continue to rain primitive yet still dangerous cluster munitions down on us — and let's hope this round will be the last, forever.
Shabbat Shalom 😊
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