The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is bitterly complaining that the country cannot intercept Russian ballistic missiles because Kyiv has not been receiving advance launch warnings from its partners for over a week.

On October 19, Zelenskyy wrote on platform X: “Another Russian ballistic missile attack came in several waves overnight, and once again, there was no early warning from our partners.”

Earlier, explaining the criticality of early missile warning, Zelenskyy said on October 13, “A Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. Once again, no early warning from our partners… Our systems detected these missiles only when they were already virtually on approach to Kyiv. … And this is absolutely unjust: when they are destroying our energy infrastructure, and Ukraine is not even receiving early warnings about ballistic missile launches.”

Along with Patriot missile interceptors, Zelenskyy has described ‘missile early warning’ as absolutely vital to intercept Russian ballistic and cruise missiles.

“I spoke with Marco Rubio… First, ballistic missile interceptors, which are needed to protect lives. Second, early warning of Russian ballistic missile attacks, which is vital,” he said on October 20.

Zelenskyy has so far avoided blaming the US for failure to provide advance early warning of missiles; rather, he is blaming Ukrainian “partners” as a whole for this failure.

However, Ukraine’s European partners have absolutely no role in this, as they themselves are entirely dependent on the US for the space-based early missile-warning system.

Along with Starlink and Starshield, a space-based early missile-warning system is another critical area where Europe currently has no comparable system, and if Washington withdraws its support to Kyiv, Europe will be simply incapable of filling the gap.

While Europe has invested in ground-based radars and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, long-range radars that can track a missile in its mid- and terminal phases, Europe has no space-based early missile-warning system that can detect a missile launch in its boost phase and provide warnings to ground and airborne radars for tracking and intercepting the missiles.

This is critical for successfully intercepting ballistic and cruise missiles, as it gives ground-based and airborne radars more time to track and intercept them.

Space-Based Missile Early Warning System: How Does It Work?

The US has a series of space-based satellites fitted with sensors that can detect, track, and identify missile launches from anywhere in the world, a Cold-War-era system that has been perfected and upgraded over the decades.

The US currently has six Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO) around Earth to provide 24/7 global strategic missile-warning capability.

Launched between 2011 and 2022, these satellites are known as SBIRS (Space-Based Infrared System). The satellites carry high-power infrared sensors that monitor Earth’s surface nonstop to detect heat signatures from missile launches.

SBIRS satellites can scan large swaths of territory to detect missile activity and also focus on areas of interest for smaller-scale activities, including tactical ballistic missile launches.

These sensors are independently tasked, meaning the satellite can scan a wide territory while also focusing on a specific area of concern.

For instance, currently, the US SBIRS satellites would naturally scan Iran and Russia more than any other region.

During the missile’s initial boost phase, its exhaust plume releases intense heat. These intense heat signatures stand out in infrared sensors against the cooler Earth background.

Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) sensors on satellites spot this signature within seconds of ignition, even through clouds or darkness, and provide ground-based stations and radars with the first warning of a missile launch.

These powerful sensors can detect any missile launch within seconds, from small, unsophisticated missiles such as the Iraqi Scuds, which were detected, tracked, and intercepted during the First Gulf War, to Russia’s large intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and everything in between, such as the short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and even cruise and hypersonic missiles.

These sensors can not only detect missile launches, but also identify them. Missile rocket motors produce exhaust gases at different temperatures based on their fuel, chemical composition, and other design features, helping these sensors identify distinct missile signatures.

However, infrared sensors on the six GEO satellites are not the US’s only space-based assets that help it detect missile launches in their boost phases.

The space segment of the SBIRS program also includes Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) sensors riding on host satellites and legacy Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites.

HEO sensors improve coverage of high-latitude and polar regions that are harder to monitor effectively from GEO alone.

The DSP program was launched in the 1970s, after the experimental Missile Defense Alarm System (MIDAS) of the 1960s proved the concept of detecting ICBM launches from space.

Under the DSP program, the US launched over 20 satellites with spinning IR sensors into geosynchronous orbit between 1970 and 2007.

DSP provided continuous strategic warning during the Cold War. It was this system that detected Iraqi Scud missiles during the First Gulf War.

The SBIRS program succeeded DSP, with significantly higher sensitivity, dual sensors, multi-spectral capability, better resolution, and improved ground processing.

Together, GEO, HEO, and DSP satellites provide 24/7 monitoring of Earth’s surface and can detect a missile launch from anywhere on Earth.

These satellites downlink data to ground stations (Air Force Space Command in Colorado), which analyze it to characterize the event, launch time and location, missile type, possible trajectory, and likely point of impact, then relay the information to NORAD, US Strategic Command, combatant commands, and missile defense systems.

This early missile warning is crucial to successful missile interception because it gives ground-based and airborne radars more time to track and intercept the missile, and Europe currently lacks a corresponding system.

Why Europe Is Dependent On The US For Early Missile Warning

SBIRS collects data and processes it at ground stations, then shares it with European allies through NATO’s Shared Early Warning System (SEWS).

This data is complemented by Europe’s ground-based and airborne radars, as well as by the US AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar at RAF Fylingdales in the UK.

However, Europe has no comparable space-based early missile-warning system. It has some space situational awareness, but nothing equivalent to a persistent space-based infrared constellation for detecting missile launches.

Therefore, not only Ukraine but Europe itself depends on the US for early warning of ballistic or hypersonic missile threats.

Europe therefore cannot fill the gap if Washington decides not to share these missile-launch warnings with Kyiv.

Europe has pursued this capability for years; however, its programs have not progressed beyond the technology-demonstrator stage.

For instance, in 2009, France launched SPIRALE, a spaceborne early warning demonstrator program. It successfully collected infrared data on missile launches; however, the program ended in 2011 and France is yet to launch a full-scale follow-up program.

European countries also launched another technology demonstrator program, TWISTER, in 2019.

In October last year, France and Germany signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to launch two complementary, interoperable geostationary (GEO) satellites with infrared sensors, under the JEWEL (Joint Early Warning for a European Lookout) program.

However, Europe currently has no sovereign, operational, space-based missile early-warning system.

Europe recognizes its vulnerability and has demonstrated its technological capability, but building a space-based, IR-sensor-equipped satellite constellation that provides nonstop coverage of every part of Earth’s surface would take at least a decade more.

Meanwhile, both Ukraine and Europe remain critically dependent on the US.

• Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from The University of Sheffield, UK. 
• He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com

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Russia’s Tupolev Tu-160M, the world’s largest, heaviest, and fastest strategic bomber, has become even more formidable.

Its manufacturer, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), says it has modernized roughly 80% of the aircraft’s onboard systems and equipment, keeping the nuclear-capable bomber relevant amid rapidly evolving battlefield demands.

The upgraded onboard systems include modern avionics, navigation technology, weapons-control systems, and a complete renewal of onboard radio-electronic equipment and upgrades to the aircraft-control system.

The company has also changed the strategic bomber’s propulsion system, introducing the new NK-32-02 engines, also described as the NK-32 Series 02.

The upgrades provide Russia with a modernized long-range strike platform, capable of delivering nuclear warheads as well as conventional military missions.

The Tu-160M ‘White Swan’ is also a key part of Russia’s nuclear triad, alongside land-based and submarine-launched missiles.

However, although the company has modernized and upgraded 80% of the onboard systems and equipment, it has not tinkered with the aircraft’s airframe, which remains unchanged. This means that the Tu-160M, known by its NATO reporting name Blackjack, retains the distinctive variable-sweep wings and overall appearance of the original Tu-160.

The Tu-160M’s variable-sweep wings can adjust from about 20° fully forward to 65° fully swept back for high-speed flight.

The forward-swept wings maximize lift and wingspan, allowing the massive aircraft to take off with its heavy payload, while the fully swept wings sharply reduce drag, enabling the Tu-160M to reach about Mach 2.05 and making it the fastest operational strategic bomber.

In short, variable-sweep wings let a large strategic bomber combine heavy-lift capability, long endurance, and genuine supersonic performance, a combination fixed-wing designs struggle to match.

More importantly, Russia has rebuilt the engineering and industrial capacity to produce a strategic, nuclear-capable, long-range bomber nearly three decades after Moscow lost this crucial capability.

Tupolev head Yuri Abrosimov discussed the Tu-160M’s modernization efforts in an article published by the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), which includes Tupolev.

Highlighting the Tu-160’s unique characteristics, Abrosimov said, “The Tu-160 strategic missile carrier is still the best supersonic aircraft in the world, surpassing in its characteristics a similar aircraft complex available in the United States.”

“46 official world records have been set on the Tu-160, including the record for flight duration and range. The resumption of mass production of the legendary ‘White Swan’ is the development of unique competencies and industrial and technological sovereignty of our country,” he added.

Abrosimov underlined that, in addition to modernizing 80% of the onboard systems, including a new powerplant, the company has refurbished several assembly lines from scratch using modern technologies.

The company has also upgraded workshop equipment and its flight-test facilities, and introduced electron-beam welding and vacuum annealing systems for titanium assemblies.

Tupolev has also rebuilt supply lines for producing the upgraded Tu-160M bombers.

“One of the main difficulties we are facing is the restoration of production cooperation, starting with suppliers of materials and semi-finished products. We have actually rebuilt the technological chains for a number of units, taking into account the use of modern technologies,” Abrosimov said.

He also highlighted the difficulties Russia faced in restarting Tu-160M production, and the use of modern digital technologies in the process.

“The implementation of the Tu-160 reproduction program required the creation of a fundamentally new unified digital environment for working on the project. The design bureaus of Sukhoi, Mikoyan, and Ilyushin participated in the preparation of digital documentation.”

He further said that the upgradation of onboard systems was done in a way that newer systems can be integrated without requiring modernization of the entire complex.

“When upgrading on-board systems, modern approaches have been applied, which make it possible, if necessary, to further increase the functionality of the systems and the aircraft as a whole, as an aviation complex, without significant improvements.”

“The approaches used in building the architecture of the avionics complex will allow installing new systems to replace those that become obsolete over time, without modernizing the entire complex. This makes it possible to constantly provide a response to the emerging demands of time,” he said.

Notably, Russia has localized the upgrade of the Tu-160M bomber and refurbished its assembly units while under crippling Western sanctions that specifically target the Russian military-industrial and aerospace complex, including the UAC, Rostec, Tupolev, and the Kazan manufacturing plant that produces the Tu-160.

Earlier, the UAC disclosed that it digitized the complete design documentation for the Tu-160M and modernized over 40% of equipment at the Kazan Aviation Plant to restart bomber production.

In the 1980s, during the Soviet era, the Kazan Aircraft Production Plant produced the Tu-160.

Production continued until 1992, when Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered an end to serial production after the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991.

During this time, the Kazan plant built nearly 35 Tu-160M bombers.

Notably, when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, 19 of the nearly 35 Tu-160M bombers were in Ukraine, which announced their integration into the Ukrainian Air Force.

However, in the following years, Ukraine transferred eight Tu-160 bombers to Russia under a debt-relief program and dismantled the remaining bombers under a Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program with the US.

Russia decided to restart Tu-160M production in 2016 and again chose the same plant, the Kazan Aviation Plant (KAZ), for the job.

The facility required substantial modernization, including new equipment, rebuilding workshops, and restoring titanium-welding capability.

However, sanctions slowed the program. The first round of sanctions was imposed on Russia in 2014, following the occupation of Crimea.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, much stronger sanctions were imposed on Russia, especially on its military-industrial complex.

In June 2024, UAC announced it had completed modernization at three workshops for producing new Tu-160 bombers. Overall, from 2016 to 2024, Russia modernized about 10 production facilities for the strategic bomber.

Despite crippling sanctions, Russia restarted production of the Tu-160M bomber and even achieved 80% modernization of its onboard systems, no small feat.

However, the 80% figure comes from internal company claims and has not been independently verified.

Russia has signed a contract to produce 10 Tu-160M bombers.

The first newly built Tu-160M2 made its maiden flight in Kazan on January 12, 2022, becoming the first new Tu-160 built since 1992.

However, the program has missed repeated deadlines.

Russia was supposed to receive four Tu-160M bombers by 2023: two newly built Tu-160M2 and two upgraded Tu-160Ms.

The deadline was then extended first to 2024, and then to 2025.

By the end of 2025, Russia had received only two Tu-160M strategic bombers. It remains unclear whether the two are new or upgraded.

Still, restarting Tu-160 production, digitizing its engineering design documentation, and upgrading 80% of its onboard systems, including a new engine, despite crippling Western sanctions, remain major achievements for Russian military aviation.

The Tu-160M is not only a nuclear delivery platform but also a strategic conventional military platform, and it has been used in both the Syrian War and the Ukraine War.

It remains the largest combat aircraft in the world; it could carry 45,000 kg of ordnance across its two internal bays, or up to twelve nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and fly 14,000 km without refueling. Its supersonic speed of 2,300 km/h and variable-sweep wings made it a standout in aviation history.

Russia is slowly restarting production and upgrading its Tu-160M bomber, while the US and China are already working on next-generation strategic bombers, the B-21 Raider and H-20.

The Northrop Grumman B-21 stealth bomber remains on track to enter operational service in 2027, and China’s Xi’an H-20 is also in production, though its current status is unknown.

While the Tu-160 is unmatched in payload capacity and can exceed Mach 2, it isn’t stealthy, unlike the B-2 Spirit or the under-development B-21 Raider, which can penetrate contested airspace.

• Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from The University of Sheffield, UK. 
• He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com

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