China’s hypersonic military projects include spaceplanes and rail guns

While President Trump’s recent push for a US Space Force drew mockery for its science fiction visions, China has been making steady progress in a variety of key areas to the future of space and military operations, including advances in 3D printing, energy storage, scramjet test platforms and ICBMs.

TSC Beijing, a Chinese titanium manufacturer, successfully 3D printed a titanium fuselage central box for its high-speed aircraft, which cuts production time from two years down to just six months. TSC used the 3D laser printer TSC-S4510 (one of the world’s largest 3D printers) to print the fuselage, within an error tolerance of less than 0.5mm. The intended aircraft was identified only as a “high speed” (read hypersonic) aircraft. Given its narrow wing roots, and 7 meter total length, it is likely a hypersonic UAV.

One likely candidate for the titanium airframe is a single engine, high-supersonic UAV with narrow wings and a needle-like airframe. Possibly designated the WZ-8, it is believed to be an air-launched UAV used to test high-speed propulsion technologies, such as a turbine ramjet combined cycle engine. TSC Beijing’s rapidly printed 3D components have an impact beyond any one system—they could allow China to field more test UAVs soon, speeding up next-generation hypersonic technologies.

The Global Times reported that the Academy of Aerospace Solid Propulsion Technology, part of aerospace giant CASC, has delivered advanced Direct Current (DC) electric motors for use in an ‘electromagnetic weapons system.’ The DC motors are designed to operate in environments with heavy shock and recoil, and intense magnetic fields. This suggests the weapons system is a railgun, which uses electromagnetic force to shoot shells at speeds above Mach 6. Once operational, Chinese railguns could be used for anti-ship, long-range artillery bombardment and air/missile defense missions.

In May, the National Defense University of Technology (NUDT) showed off the Ling Yun, a Mach 6+, two stage scramjet testbed. NUDT hopes that the Ling Yun’s relative simplicity and reliability will make it a mass-produced platform for refining new hypersonic technologies such as thermal resistant components for communications systems, or for collecting atmospheric data in the near space. The Ling Yun’s ease of production could provide the basis for scramjet cruise missiles used to swarm enemy ships and air defenses.

Other possibilities open up if Ling Yun’s scramjet engine can scale down to a 6 to 8 inch diameter. This would open up the potential of hypersonic shells for China’s cannons that could fire hundreds of kilometers (the US Army is also at work on such a system, targeting completion in 2023). A scramjet cannon would be cheaper and more mobile than a railgun, since it wouldn’t need to lug around massive systems for power generation and storage. Scramjet cannons would be cheaper than ballistic missiles, not to mention being harder to defend against due to smaller sensor profiles and higher rates of fire.

Finally, the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) conducted its tenth test flight on May 27, 2018. The DF-41 is a mobile, 13,000-15,000km range ICBM with a multiple warhead payload of 1.5-2 tons. The DF-41’s massive payload and Mach 25 top speed gives it enough performance to launch other systems, like a hypersonic glide vehicle with global reach (a Chinese response to the infamous Russian ICBM, Avangard) or more exotically, a multistage booster for long-range scramjet cruise missiles.

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