Over the past few years, Russian statesmen, politicians, and experts have consumed tons of paper and uttered hundreds of thousands of words about the deployment of American missile defense. Meanwhile, the development in the field of missile defense was actively carried out (and perhaps is being carried out) not only in the United States, but also in the People's Republic of China, and not without results.
45 years ago - on February 23, 1966, the Government Commission on Defense Science, Technology and Industry of the PRC adopted a step-by-step detailed program for the creation of a national missile defense, which was given the code name "Project 640". In this case, the Chinese inclined to conspiracy proceeded from the so-called directive 640 - a guiding wish expressed a couple of years earlier by Mao Zedong in a conversation with Qiang Xuesen, the founder of the PRC's rocket and space program.
Catch up with Moscow and Washington
The great helmsman, to whom the special services of the Celestial Empire brought information about the work on the problem of strategic missile defense in America and the Soviet Union, said then about the need to catch up with the "imperialists" and "revisionists" in this area at all costs. By that time, work was in full swing in the USSR on the A-35 anti-missile system, and the United States had already adopted the Nike-Zeus transatmospheric interception system and a new Nike-X missile defense system was being developed. The territory of China, which at that time seriously damaged relations with Moscow, came under the crosshairs of not only American, but also Soviet nuclear missile weapons, primarily medium-range ballistic missiles - R-5M, R-12 and R-14.
Dr. Qian and his fellow subordinates set to work with enthusiasm. Despite the growing bacchanalia of the Cultural Revolution and the enormous resources allocated by Beijing to solve the primary defense task - the deployment of nuclear weapons production, the Chinese anti-missile program has received a high state priority. Several numbered ministries of mechanical engineering, the Academy of Sciences of the PRC, the Second Artillery (Rocket Forces) and "Base 20" - a missile test site, now better known as the Shuangchengzi Cosmodrome, from which the first Chinese manned spacecraft was launched into orbit in 2003 …
Project 640 envisaged the creation of a family of Fansi (Counter-Attack) anti-missiles, Xinfeng (Pioneer) anti-missile cannon (!) And radar stations for early warning of missile attacks. In addition, it was decided to speed up work on the construction of a ground test complex for anti-missile missiles and start developing nuclear warheads for them.
The most active phase of the "Project 640" implementation fell on the 70s. During this period, work on it was carried out under the auspices of the Academy of Anti-Ballistic Missile and Anti-Space Defense - this is how the Second Academy of the Seventh Ministry of Mechanical Engineering, an analogue of the Soviet Ministry of Medium Machine Building, in charge of rocketry, was renamed on the personal instructions of Premier Zhou Enlai. By the way, the name "Second Artillery" for the missile forces of the People's Liberation Army of China was also invented by Zhou Enlai.
The Chinese approach to the creation of Fanxi interceptor missiles basically corresponded to the philosophy implemented in the US Nike-X missile defense system, the combat means of which were the Spartan long-range interceptor interceptor missiles and Sprint short-range interceptor missiles. As you know, "Sprint" was intended to "finish off" the warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles, which could break through to the protected object, avoiding being hit in outer space by the main anti-missile "Spartan".
Moreover, it was not only about the fundamental philosophy of the project, but also about direct constructive borrowings, which were resorted to by Chinese engineers, whose random congeniality is hard to believe. But it is well known that Qiang Xuesen, as a talented specialist, took place in the United States, from where he arrived in his historical homeland as an already venerable scientist in 1955, having extensive contacts in the aviation science and industry of America. And after his repatriation, these connections could well have been used by the PRC intelligence, although the Chinese Korolev was subject to restrictions in the United States during the hunt for "communist witches" there.
On the other hand, it is not at all excluded that when designing their anti-missiles, the Chinese carefully studied the open Western military-technical literature, including the popular one, where the Nike-X system and its further clones - Sentinel and Safeguard were described in details that are completely unacceptable, say, for the press of the USSR. And if China had at its disposal the documentation for the Soviet A-35 anti-missile system, it would most likely try to develop something similar to it. After all, the Chinese created their own versions of the R-5M and R-12 ballistic missiles (and sent them to the Soviet Union) thanks to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who ordered to transfer them the technical documentation for these products of the domestic defense industry.
Sprint in Chinese
However, one can assume anything, but the fact remains: the Chinese low- and medium-altitude anti-missile "Fanxi-1" outwardly turned out to be practically a double of the American "Sprint". The first "Counterattack", like the "Sprint", was a two-stage hypersonic missile. She was supposed to be equipped with a semi-active radar homing head.
True, unlike the all-solid-fuel Sprint, the first stage of Fanxi-1 had a liquid-propellant rocket engine. In addition - and in this the Chinese and American systems differed - for the close interception line (here the Americans intended to use only Sprint missiles), the PRC also developed the Fanxi-2 low-altitude missile. And the counterpart to the Spartan was to become the anti-missile for the transatmospheric interception of the Fanxi-3. For the Chinese interceptor missiles, as well as for the American ones, nuclear equipment was envisaged.
It is believed that the Chinese have brought to the stage of flight tests only reduced mock-ups of the Fanxi-2 rocket, launched in 1971-1972, and the throwing mass-size mock-ups of the Fanxi-1 rocket, the first launches of which took place in 1979. Fanxi-3 never saw the sky, let alone space heights - its development was curtailed in 1977. The creation of Fanxi-2 ceased four years earlier - this missile defense element was ultimately considered redundant.
The PLA command, inspired by the first flights of experimental anti-missile missiles, without waiting for the completion of work on Fanxi-3, proposed deploying a limited missile defense system based on Fanxi-1 to cover Beijing.
As for the Xinfeng anti-missile super-gun, this ridiculous miracle of Chinese engineering was born in the 210th Institute, which was under the auspices of the PRO-PKO Academy. The Pioneer project (Project 640-2) was submitted for consideration by the military-political leadership of the PRC in 1967. It turned out to be a real monster, the 420-mm barrel of which was intended for firing uncontrolled active-reactive nuclear projectiles weighing 160 kilograms towards enemy warheads entering the dense layers of the atmosphere. The stationary artillery mount weighed 155 tons.
They even passed the Xinfeng tests. At the first of them, testing of a 140-mm smooth-bore gun model took place. 18-kilogram shells were fired from it, hitting at a distance of 74 kilometers. They were busy with the "Pioneer" until 1977, and in 1980, work on all the weapons of the strategic missile defense in the framework of "Project 640" was finally stopped. This decision was made by the "father" of Chinese economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, who considered that the program, the prospects for the successful completion of which are far from obvious, is extremely burdensome for the country's budget. A significant role in this was played by the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, concluded in 1972 between the USSR and the United States - after all, China was trying to catch up with them.
Be that as it may, "Project 640" proved to be very useful for strengthening the defense capability of the PRC. The work carried out within its framework to create the appropriate radar systems allowed the Chinese to acquire ground stations for tracking space objects and early warning of a missile attack, however, limited in their capabilities in comparison with similar stations in the USSR and the USA. Such radars, in particular, include radar stations "7010" and "110", which formed the basis of the national early warning system of the Celestial Empire.
Wind in orbit
Today, China, undoubtedly possessing the capabilities of creating "classical" ground-based anti-missile systems (at least at the technological level of the superpowers of the 1980s), has turned its eyes to space. The more promising business there, apparently, consider the mastery of anti-satellite technologies. The level of scientific and technical potential of the PRC achieved in this area was demonstrated in January 2007, when a Chinese satellite fighter launched into a polar orbit at an altitude of 853 kilometers destroyed the out-of-date Chinese meteorological satellite "Fyn Yun-1" ("Wind and Clouds-1") … The anti-satellite struck the "meteorologist" in a kinetic manner - with a direct hit.
To launch the anti-satellite, a promising launch vehicle of the "Kaituochzhe" type ("Researcher") was used. It is a family of Chinese solid-propellant space rockets, developed on the basis of the first and second stages of the Dongfeng-31 (East Wind-31) ICBM and the new third stage, which was tested in 2001. Such carriers are capable of delivering payloads weighing up to 300-400 kilograms into polar orbit.
Judging by some reports, "Kaituochzhe" can be launched within 20 hours after receiving the order to start not only from a stationary launch pad, but also from a self-propelled launcher. The rocket that launched the first Chinese killer satellite into space was launched from an unidentified area near the Xichang cosmodrome ("base 27") - presumably, just from a mobile "launcher"
