this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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Everyone knows exactly where the satellites are and certain (potential) enemies have the capability to disrupt/destroy them.
A stealth jet is, well, stealthy, which has a lot of value.
Some artists impressions of the jet don't have any windows and it's believed to be unmanned or at least capable of unmanned flight.
Also I wouldn't discount the cool factor... the airforce does fighter jet flyovers all the time and occasionally stealth jets too. It helps with recruiting for one thing.
Plus at Mach 10, there's little time between target acquisition, firing solution, launch, even with Mach-teen missiles.
It's not like missiles have unlimited range.
Plus being unmanned it likely could manuever much faster, since it doesn't have to consider sacks of jelly, just airframe capability.
Of course, I'm just speculating. Though range and relative speeds are what the 71 relied on to not be shot down too.
I seriously doubt this thing can maneuver when traveling at its operational speed. Air resistance would be like hitting a brick wall, it would rip apart. Of course it can probably just fly past everything so fast that it doesn't matter, including air intercept missiles.
It must just eat fuel. I wonder what its expected operating range is. I bet it has to refuel inflight as soon as it gets off the ground and up to cruising altitude, before it can go do anything useful.
From my understanding, the most capable spy satellites are either in geostationary orbit or polar orbits.
Geo orbit gets you constant survalance but in limited areas
Polar orbit gets you almost anywhere but only periodic survalance while you wait for the orbit to process.
So this can be good for getting somewhere you don't typically monitor in real time or to get quicker more real time info on a target.
Also, a big threat the government is worried about right now is the physical saftey of space assets. If someone launches a space weapon and takes out a spy satellite, I can see how the government would want a good fallback
The X-Men need an upgrade
Satellites are mostly tied to their orbit in terms of flight path and times. An aircraft can be anywhere at any time, and this one is designed to be anywhere quickly.
It also says it's intended to be unmanned. Which means that what it brings to the table is similar to what a drone brings to the table, just at a much larger scale, it's a global asset drone vs a theater asset drone. Put a couple of em on an airbase in the middle east somewhere and it's only a few hours round trip to go check on what the latest is on ICBM progress in NK, for example. Even less to have a peek at the goings on in Gaza, or Yemen...
We're still flying U2 spy planes, we run drones all over the place, there's absolutely still purposes for this type of platform.
It's also noteworthy that the article mentions mach 10, which is getting ballpark close to being entirely untouchable by air defenses. Top speed for SAMs is ballpark mach 15, but there aren't a whole hell of a lot of missiles that could chase down a target doing mach 10, and if it's stealth tech, even the very best systems would be very hard pressed to acquire it with enough lead time to come up with a fire solution for it. A stealth mach 10 capable platform could fly anywhere on earth with very little regard for potential defenses.
The truly relevant question is actually one you didn't ask. How much is it, and is it worth it? I'd say probably not, but not in the context that we wouldn't be getting our money's worth, I think we would, but I don't think we really need to spend that much to have even more military advantage than we already have.
You can put it exactly where you want it, exactly when you want it there.
Good thing the article mentions it's unmanned 😉