Ballistic Missile Defences (BMD)
Ballistic missile defence systems often work by using a kinetic kill vehicle to smash into its target. Let’s consider an attacking country launching an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM, against a defending country. There are 4 different phases of a ballistic missile flight that we will consider: boost, post-boost, mid-course, and terminal. The boost phase lasts between 3 and 5 minutes depending on whether the ICBM is solid, or liquid fuelled. This is technically the easiest time to shoot the missile down however this is usually impractical due to the location of the missile from interceptors at the time. The post boost phase can last between 5 and 10 minutes where the post boost vehicle, or bus, manoeuvres into predesignated locations to release warheads and decoys. Intercepting the bus is more difficult than intercepting the entire missile, but far easier than intercepting each object released by the bus. The midcourse phase can last 20 minutes, when the warhea...