Chinese researchers have come up with a new technique that may help defeat enemy ballistic missile defenses by overwhelming them with fake threats that look like they are coming from space.
The team of military engineers behind this initiative has announced this month that they have successfully completed a proof-of-concept computer simulation of their brainchild and is now moving on to deal with the engineering challenges involved, according to a Hong Kong-based newspaper.
The new tactic, dubbed “phantom space strike,” would involve launching a ballistic missile that does not carry any conventional or nuclear payload but would instead release several spacecraft after reaching above the atmosphere.
These spacecraft then dupe the enemy into launching an interceptor missile by fooling their radars with phantom signals.
The team, led by a senior engineer with the People’s Liberation Army Unit 63891 named Zhao Yanli, did point out that “generating phantom tracks in space is extremely difficult,” even though they apparently managed to solve “one of the major challenges” with a “clever design,” the newspaper noted.
While the distance between the spacecraft will increase over time, Zhao’s team reportedly said they managed to find a way to keep the positioning error between the dummy signal sources within the standard error margin of a military radar.