Reasons for Development
- With a nuclear weapon, the system provided a limitless strike range.
- The system allowed you to attack from any angle.
- For example, the Soviet Union could invade the United States from either the South Pole or the North Pole; technically, it could also carry out both attack plans at the same time.
- The technology allowed for the circumvention of early warning radar systems. This advantage stems from two separate features of FOBS: (1) its ability to strike from any direction, as previously stated, and (2) its ability to go along a very low Earth orbital path.
- The system keeps the destination location concealed until the package exited orbit. The FOBS may theoretically stay in orbit for many years due to its incredibly short trajectory, albeit the FOBS vehicle could detach from its warhead at any time throughout the orbit.
- The FOBS flew faster than the ICBM (assuming no indirect route is used for radar avoidance purposes). The FOBS missile might arrive 10 minutes earlier than the ICBM at its target.
- The FOBS was supposed to be able to get over American anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses, according to the Soviet Union. From the beginning, the Soviet FOBS’ main purpose was to do this.
Fractional Orbital Bombardment System
Western defense specialists are concerned that China may have tested an orbiting bombardment weapon last summer, as reported by the Financial Times. A nuclear-capable glider was launched into orbit by China’s Long March rocket using a technology that allowed the glider to travel at hypersonic speeds toward its target.
If this information is accurate, it shows that China was making rapid progress in building weapons that can, to a significant part, avoid current pro-missile (ABM) defenses and the associated warning systems existing in America and the European Union.
As far as we know, China did not invent the Fraction Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS). Russia developed an orbit bombardment system in the 1960s that could transport a nuclear warhead into orbit at a lower trajectory than ordinary fixed-trajectory ballistic missiles.
The maximum altitude of the missile will be around 150 km. Energetically, this would require a launch vehicle capable of placing the weapon ‘in orbit’. However the orbit was only a fraction of the full orbit, not continuous, and so there would be little need to control a precise orbit or maintain it for long.