Hit-To-Kill Missiles or megawatt-class chemical laser). Such a system could also be equipped with sensors to detect incoming anti-ballistic missile-type threats and relatively light protective measures to use against them (e.g. With 6вЂ“8 satellites on a given orbit, a target could be hit within 12вЂ“15 minutes from any given time, less than half the time taken by an ICBM and without the launch warning. As the name suggests, the 'bunker buster' is powerful enough to destroy a nuclear bunker. These designs are envisioned as a bunker buster. Some systems are quoted as having the yield of a small tactical nuclear bomb. As the rod reenters Earth's atmosphere it would lose most of the velocity, but the remaining energy would cause considerable damage.

The bomb would naturally contain a large kinetic energy because it moves at orbital velocities, around 8 kilometres per second (26,000 ft/s 8,000 m/s MachВ 24) in orbit and 3 kilometres per second (9,800 ft/s 3,000 m/s MachВ 8.8) at impact. ДЄ system described in the 2003 United States Air Force report was that of 20-foot-long (6.1В m), 1-foot-diameter (0.30В m) tungsten rods that are satellite-controlled and have global strike capability, with impact speeds of Mach 10.

In the 1980s, a similar idea was conceptualized as a potential part of the Strategic Defense Initiative, there codenamed Brilliant Pebbles. Jerry Pournelle created the concept while working in operations research at Boeing in the 1950s before becoming a science-fiction writer. Project Thor is an idea for a weapons system that launches telephone pole-sized kinetic projectiles made from tungsten from Earth's orbit to damage targets on the ground. Similar flechette projectiles have been used since the first World War. These were dumped from aircraft onto enemy troops and had the same effect as a machine gun fired vertically. A piece of sheet metal was folded to make the fins and welded to the rear of the projectile.

Disadvantages include the technical difficulties of ensuring accuracy and the high costs of positioning ammunition in orbit.Дuring the Korean and Vietnam Wars, there was limited use of the Lazy Dog bomb, a kinetic projectile shaped like a conventional bomb but only about 1.75-inch-long (44В mm) and 0.50-inch-diameter (13В mm). In addition, projectiles would not require explosive warheads, and-in the simplest designs-would consist entirely of solid metal rods, giving rise to the common nickname 'rods from God'. Kinetic bombardment has the advantage of being able to deliver projectiles from a very high angle at a very high speed, making them extremely difficult to defend against. The rods would typically be shaped to minimize air resistance and maximize velocity upon impact.

(In science fiction, the weapon is often depicted as being launched from a spaceship, instead of a satellite.) When a strike is ordered, the launch vehicle brakes one of the rods out of its orbit and into a suborbital trajectory that intersects the target. Typical depictions of the tactic are of a satellite containing a magazine of tungsten rods and a directional thrust system. The concept originated during the Cold War. Short description: Hypothetical weapon of mass destruction via orbital strikes of projectiles with incredible kinetic energyДЄ kinetic bombardment or a kinetic orbital strike is the hypothetical act of attacking a planetary surface with an inert projectile from orbit (orbital bombardment), where the destructive power comes from the kinetic energy of the projectile impacting at very high speeds.

Star wars orbital bombardment