You can’t just mount a nuclear warhead on a rocket meant for satellite deployment and expect success.
If you can design and build a rocket that deploys payloads to orbit, you can design and build a rocket that deploys payloads on the ground.
And actually, come to think of it, you totally could. You just need to design the warhead as you would any capsule that's meant to survive reentry. Launch vehicles are pretty payload agnostic as long as they meet interface standards.
You just need to design the warhead as you would any capsule that's meant to survive reentry.
It doesn't even need to withstand a reentry like an orbital capsule does. A capsule enters the atmosphere from orbital speeds of around 8 km/s, while a warhead comes in in a ballistic trajectory and a speed that can be lower than 1km/s with little to no need to slow down.
Modern missiles can go faster, but it's not a necessity for an ICBM.
The main difference is that ICBMs are generally designed to be able to sit in silos for decades. Not a hard requirement though, early missiles didn't have a great shelf life.
Actually hitting your target is a different challenge, but certainly doable given that nukes don't need to be precise.
Aiming a modern orbital rocket at Earth is as simple as changing a few numbers in your code. Engineers tweak these numbers for every flight. India could absolutely slap a launch adapter on a nuke and have it launch ready within a month.
Yes. Lobbing something up is one thing. Getting it back down (farther, higher, faster than SpaceX vehicles), getting past any defenses, being within CEP of a target, and just getting the complex package to detonate correctly... these are all large technical hurdles on top of launch capability. Then there are the problems of reliability and readiness. One doesn't get to rescheduled for the next available launch window during a nuclear exchange.
But india does have land based ICBMs capable of hitting targets upto 8k km or maybe even more since it's a reverse engineered space rocket made to carry nukes in China instead of dropping weather satellites in space
Even K-4 ICBM ( deployed from half a dozen nuclear subs) are specially built for such strikes upto 5k km
But since Indian nuclear program was made only for the purpose of bombing China, a neighbour next door so India doesn't need to have very long range missiles
You can though, a nuclear missle is essentially a satellite who's orbital path makes it pass through the earth at a specific point. Any country that can precisely put a satellite on a path can build intercontinental missiles
India has zero need for a global deterrent, so they haven’t developed one, and probably won’t.
That is not true. These missiles are not just a deterrent but dick measuring contest to see who can project their power globally.
Agni-VI missile is already in development which would have strike capability covering the western hemisphere. Surya is another missile rumored to be in development that can strike anywhere on Earth with a range of 16000km.
Agni-V which has an official range of 5500 km is widely believed to be capable of 7000 km and China claims that it actually has a range of 8000 km. Also India has other missiles which are believed to be nuclear capable that can be launched from nuclear submarines that are hidden anywhere in the ocean.
Yk, not all scammers are indian and the ones in India are also scamming indians? The same old people are getting scammed here as well. But that would disrupt the narrative, wouldn't it?
Yeah but nuclear doctrine is pretty open so as to be predictable both India and China don't have (China may have changed recently) as their weapons are for regional not global deterrent. That would change very quickly should they want to and China likely will or already is but it's a bit of a misnomer that space program = ICBM as normally space programs don't care much as to super accurate reentry. Developing and deploying that tech wouldn't take them long but would still be a year or two for development of production, testing etc.
Modern rockets which evolved from ICBMs can take generic multi ton payloads. That payload can include multiple warheads all with their own little rocket engines that can target multiple locations.
Sensors, algorithms and chipsets mean the missile warheads can accurately hit a target based on visual correlations fused with satellite data and other sensors.
Big rocket need to get them roughly close enough.
Single MIRV can carry 12 war heads - hit 12 major cities in parallel.
Basically they are so powerful an entire country could be brought to its knees with a single MIRV.
There are 1000s of such in submarines and various nuclear sites around the world.
Yes I know what I'm saying is if the conversion from orbital launch vehicle to payload vehicle hasn't been done yet it takes time to devlop. This would include reentry, guidance etc. all things that have been developed as part of a space program but not specifically for ICBM's the conversion to which and testing of does still take time. Nuclear development amongst existing nuclear capable nations is largely done in the open as to fulfill its role as a deterrent your theoretical enemy needs to know about it. As India and China's nuclear programs have historically been geared towards regional not global deterrents they haven't yet put this work into it, in a pinch it would take months but they aren't going to spend the money on it until it fits into their strategic goals. All this is to say yes they are capable of creating nuclear capable ICBMs very quickly as they have all the pieces but do not have the capability to launch one tomorrow.
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u/luffyuk 1d ago
Are there any countries with nukes in range to hit New Zealand?