Key Points and Summary – Hypersonic missiles fly faster than Mach 5, maneuver unpredictably, and often appear late on traditional radars, leaving defenders with seconds to react.
-The U.S. is betting on space-based sensors like the SDA’s Tranche-2 Tracking Layer to spot and track these threats early, building a full “kill chain” from detection to engagement.
Hypersonic Missile. Image Credit: U.S. Military.
-High-energy lasers seem ideal on paper—speed-of-light shots and endless “ammo”—but they struggle with dwell time, atmospheric distortion, platform motion, and the precision needed to stay locked on a hypersonic target.
-Until tracking and aimpoint control are solved, lasers will be a helpful contributor, not a standalone solution.
Are Lasers the Future of Hypersonic Defense?
In late September 2025, defense tech company Sierra Space announced the completion of the Critical Design Review for a set of new satellites currently being built for the Space Development Agency’s Tranche-2 Tracking Layer – an extensive satellite network designed to identify and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles from space.
It’s just one example of ongoing development and investment in space-based sensor architecture that is taking defense planners into an entirely new environment.
As global military tech evolves, new threats are emerging – and defense planners are being forced to look up. The problem, though, is that the weapons in development may not be as effective as engineers hope. Defending against hypersonic missiles is difficult, and when using lasers to do it, as is currently the expectation, it comes with a series of significant flaws that are hard to resolve.
Chief among them is the fact that the laser’s power matters less than the hypersonic missiles’ speed, which makes them hard to target accurately.
Taking them out with lasers requires identifying them early and accurately targeting them for sufficiently long periods to counter them.
Until the U.S. solves the tracking and aimpoint problem, high-energy lasers may not necessarily be the answer to long-range threats.
Here’s what you need to know.
The X-51 Waverider is set to demonstrate hypersonic flight. Powered by a Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne SJY61 scramjet engine, it is designed to ride on its own shockwavem and accelerate to about Mach 6. (U.S. Air Force graphic)
Why Hypersonic Missiles Are Hard to Track – And Aim A Laser At
Hypersonic missiles, which are generally defined as projectiles traveling at speeds greater than Mach 5 and capable of sustained atmospheric maneuvering, pose a radically different challenge compared with earlier ballistic or cruise missiles – and for multiple reasons.
First, these weapons move extremely fast.
Hypersonic missiles can travel long distances at several kilometers per second, leaving defense systems with little time to detect and engage them. Blink, and you’ll miss it.
Secondly, their paths are unpredictable. Unlike ballistic missiles, whose trajectories can be computed well in advance, hypersonic vehicles and missiles can change course mid-flight, making predictive tracking impossible. Those days are over.
Third, there are detection and line-of-sight constraints that further limit how even an advanced force can engage with the weapons. Ground-based radars and sensors, for example, may only pick up hypersonic missiles very late in their flight because they can’t see over the horizon, or because the rocket is traveling at a high altitude. That contributes to the minor time window issue.
With all that in mind, the U.S. – and other global militaries – are looking for ways to counter these missiles. And the SDA’s new tracking satellites are now crucial.
The Tranche-2 Tracking Layer will include infrared sensors designed to generate high-fidelity tracks of inbound missiles – a clear depiction of where and how the rocket is travelling. The satellites, therefore, develop a “kill chain” – a whole sequence of steps required to target, track, aim at, and hit the incoming missile.
The problem the U.S. military is looking to solve is that it cannot hit what it cannot reliably follow – and thankfully, these new developments suggest that it is possible to track hypersonic weapons more accurately than we currently do.
DragonFire Laser. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
But problems remain.
Lasers Still Aren’t Quite Ready
Lasers are the ideal solution in theory.
They travel at the speed of light, ammunition is essentially unlimited as long as you have the power, and there is no explosive debris.
In practice, however, there are significant scientific and operational hurdles that prevent them from being the full solution to hypersonic threats – at least, yet.
First is the matter of “dwell time,” the time it takes directed-energy weapons like lasers to remain focused on the same spot long enough to deposit sufficient energy to damage or destroy a target.
At hypersonic speeds and traveling unpredictable paths, it’s hard for lasers to do what they need to do quickly enough.
The target may travel outside of the beam’s aimpoint instantly, meaning the laser can’t direct energy in the same spot for long enough.
And then there’s the matter of atmospheric distortion: everything from moisture, aerosols, salt spray, and turbulence can cause problems.
“Thermal blooming” is a noted problem, too, where the laser itself heats the air and causes the beam to spread, causing the laser to lose its energy density.
And consider this, too: a naval vessel or airborne platform is never truly steady.
Ships and aircraft are typically always on the move in one way or another, and even the slightest amount of motion or vibration can undermine the precision required for a directed beam of energy to stay locked on a target, let alone one that is moving at Mach speed.
So while laser weapons remain under development, significant hurdles remain – and defense officials themselves have acknowledged the problem.
That being said, the technology has also been described as “pretty mature,” with officials noting that it could well contribute to next-generation missile defense – but given it’s potentially the only option available at present, it’s certainly better than nothing.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York who writes frequently for National Security Journal. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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